用AI发现新数据顺序,让优化更快更稳。
Learning to Shuffle: Block Reshuffling and Reversal Schemes for Stochastic Optimization

- 用大模型进化出块重排+配对反转的新排序策略。
- 理论证明新方法降低梯度方差,提升收敛速度。
- 适合追求训练效率的深度学习研究者使用。
随机重排是常见且有效的随机梯度下降(SGD)数据排序策略,但现有理论难以指导设计更优方案。本文采用大语言模型引导的程序演化框架,发现一种新型无放回SGD数据排序规则。抽象后发现其核心为两个结构:块重排与配对反转。理论分析表明,块重排在统一框架下严格降低前缀梯度方差常数,可在弱条件下优于随机重排;配对反转使周期映射对称,消除一阶依赖的二阶项,将顺序敏感性从二次降为三次。数值实验验证理论,新算法在凸与非凸基准测试中持续优于标准排序方案。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Shuffling strategies for stochastic gradient descent (SGD), including incremental gradient, shuffle-once, and random reshuffling, are supported by rigorous convergence analyses for arbitrary within-epoch permutations. In particular, random reshuffling is known to improve optimization constants relative to cyclic and shuffle-once schemes. However, existing theory offers limited guidance on how to design new data-ordering schemes that further improve optimization constants or stability beyond random reshuffling. In this paper, we design a pipeline using a large language model (LLM)-guided program evolution framework to discover an effective shuffling rule for without-replacement SGD. Abstracting from this instance, we identify two fundamental structural components: block reshuffling and paired reversal. We analyze these components separately and show that block reshuffling strictly reduces prefix-gradient variance constants within the unified shuffling framework, yielding provable improvements over random reshuffling under mild conditions. Separately, we show that paired reversal symmetrizes the epoch map and cancels the leading order-dependent second-order term, reducing order sensitivity from quadratic to cubic in the step size. Numerical experiments with the discovered algorithm validate the theory and demonstrate consistent gains over standard shuffling schemes across convex and nonconvex benchmarks.
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