GRAIN通过最小范数聚合梯度,显著降低大模型训练的随机性。
GRAIN: Group Aggregation via Min-Norm Objective

- 用最小范数替代均值聚合梯度,减少组间与批次内梯度冲突。
- 在生成、分类、回归任务中提升平均性能并降低运行方差。
- 无需额外计算或存储开销,适合高成本的大模型训练场景。
学习不稳定性是机器学习中的长期难题,尤其在现代深度学习的过参数化场景下更为突出:大规模模型在有限数据上微调或训练时,会遍历平坦的损失曲面,存在多个几乎等效的极小值,而随机因素(初始化、数据顺序、丢弃率、硬件非确定性)可能导致优化路径指向完全不同解。大型预训练模型(LPMs)的兴起使问题更紧迫:训练成本高,下游数据少,重复运行以降低方差不可行。我们提出 extbf{GRAIN}( extbf{G}roup extbf{A}ggregation via m extbf{IN}-norm objective),一种轻量级训练算法,将小批量优化中跨批量及批内梯度的均值聚合替换为组间梯度的最小范数凸组合。 extbf{GRAIN} 保证聚合更新与每个组梯度的内积非负,缓解了组内与批内梯度冲突,并保持与SGD相当的 $\/mathcal{O}(1/T)$ 收敛速率。在温和光滑性和绝对连续性假设下,最小范数解几乎必然不同于算术平均,从而为 extbf{GRAIN} 提供比标准SGD更紧的统一稳定性界。实验表明,在大规模生成、分类和回归任务中, extbf{GRAIN} 在广泛任务上一致提升了平均性能并降低了运行间方差,且额外训练时间与存储成本仅需一次反向传播。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Learning instability is a long-standing problem across machine learning, but it is especially acute in the overparameterized regime that defines modern deep learning: large models fine-tuned or trained on limited data traverse flat loss landscapes with many nearly-equivalent minima, and stochastic factors (initialization, data order, dropout, hardware non-determinism) can route optimization to very different solutions. The rise of large pretrained models (LPMs) makes the problem more urgent: training cost is high, downstream data is often small, and repeated runs for variance reduction are prohibitive. We introduce \textbf{GRAIN} (\textbf{G}roup \textbf{A}ggregation via m\textbf{IN}-norm objective), a lightweight training algorithm that replaces the mean aggregation used in mini-batch optimization (both across mini-batches and within a mini-batch) with a min-norm convex combination of group-wise gradients. \mName guarantees a non-negative inner product between the aggregated update and every group gradient, resolving intra- and inner-batch gradient conflict, and retains an $\mathcal{O}(1/T)$ convergence rate comparable to SGD. Under mild smoothness and absolute-continuity assumptions, the min-norm solution differs almost surely from the arithmetic mean, which yields a uniform-stability bound for \mName strictly tighter than the standard bound for SGD. Empirically across generation, classification, and regression at LPM scale, \mName delivers consistent improvements in mean performance and reductions in run-to-run variance over a broad suite of tasks, with no extra training-time or storage cost beyond a single backward pass.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。