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Deep neural network expressivity as a consequence of Riemann curvature and chaos (arxiv.org)
1 point by LolWolf on Jul 13, 2016 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: Studying random-weight deep networks with geometry and chaos theory reveals a switch from orderly to chaotic signal flow. In the chaotic phase, functions bend space exponentially more per added layer but not per added width, and no shallow network can compute them efficiently.

Abstract · Exponential expressivity in deep neural networks through transient chaos

We combine Riemannian geometry with the mean field theory of high dimensional chaos to study the nature of signal propagation in generic, deep neural networks with random weights. Our results reveal an order-to-chaos expressivity phase transition, with networks in the chaotic phase computing nonlinear functions whose global curvature grows exponentially with depth but not width. We prove this generic class of deep random functions cannot be efficiently computed by any shallow network, going beyond prior work restricted to the analysis of single functions. Moreover, we formalize and quantitatively demonstrate the long conjectured idea that deep networks can disentangle highly curved manifolds in input space into flat manifolds in hidden space. Our theoretical analysis of the expressive power of deep networks broadly applies to arbitrary nonlinearities, and provides a quantitative underpinning for previously abstract notions about the geometry of deep functions.

Ben Poole, Subhaneil Lahiri, Maithra Raghu, Jascha Sohl-Dickstein, Surya Ganguli
arXiv:1606.05340 · stat.ML, cond-mat.dis-nn, cs.LG · submitted Jun 16, 2016 · updated Jun 17, 2016
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