arXiv:2603.00742cs.LG2026-03被引 6

Muon虽快但易学偏,可能忽略任务间共性结构

To Use or not to Use Muon: How Simplicity Bias in Optimizers Matters

  • 分析简化版Muon在深层线性网络中的学习动态
  • 实验显示其丧失梯度下降的简洁性偏好,易学虚假特征
  • 适合关注优化器泛化偏差的研究者参考

尽管Adam长期作为深度神经网络的默认优化器,近年来Muon因其更快的训练速度迅速流行。然而,多数文献聚焦于验证Muon的优势,本文则探究其加速机制带来的潜在弊端。理论上,我们分析了简化版Muon在深层线性网络与线性注意力中的学习动态,发现其加速源于避开鞍点,但代价是失去了梯度下降(GD)所具有的简洁性偏好——即模型复杂度按序递增。实验表明,失去该偏好后,Muon难以捕捉跨任务的共同底层结构,更易拟合虚假特征。本文提醒:更快的优化并非免费午餐;优化改进常伴随归纳偏置变化,影响泛化能力。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

While Adam has long been the ubiquitous default optimizer for deep neural networks, Muon has recently seen rapid adoption due to its superior training speed. Although much of the literature focuses on validating the benefits of Muon, our work investigates the potential downsides of the mechanism driving this speedup. On the theoretical front, we analyze the learning dynamics of simplified Muon on deep linear networks and linear attention. Our analysis reveals that Muon gains speed by avoiding saddle points, but does so at the expense of the simplicity bias characteristic of Gradient Descent (GD), where the complexity of the functional solution learned grows sequentially. Experiments demonstrate the consequences of losing the simplicity bias, showing that Muon struggles to uncover common underlying structure across tasks and may be prone to fitting spurious features. More broadly, this paper serves as a reminder that faster optimization is rarely a free lunch; improvements in optimization can come at the cost of changes in the inductive biases that shape generalization.

优化器泛化能力归纳偏置

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