about
TensorFuzz: Debugging Neural Networks with Coverage-Guided Fuzzing (arxiv.org)
2 points by matt_d on Jul 31, 2018 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: It randomly tweaks a network's inputs, steering them with a cheap similarity check toward cases that break user-set rules, to find errors only rare inputs trigger. Unlike plain random testing, it found numerical errors and mismatches between a network and its lower-precision copy.

Abstract

Machine learning models are notoriously difficult to interpret and debug. This is particularly true of neural networks. In this work, we introduce automated software testing techniques for neural networks that are well-suited to discovering errors which occur only for rare inputs. Specifically, we develop coverage-guided fuzzing (CGF) methods for neural networks. In CGF, random mutations of inputs to a neural network are guided by a coverage metric toward the goal of satisfying user-specified constraints. We describe how fast approximate nearest neighbor algorithms can provide this coverage metric. We then discuss the application of CGF to the following goals: finding numerical errors in trained neural networks, generating disagreements between neural networks and quantized versions of those networks, and surfacing undesirable behavior in character level language models. Finally, we release an open source library called TensorFuzz that implements the described techniques.

Augustus Odena, Ian Goodfellow
arXiv:1807.10875 · stat.ML, cs.LG · submitted Jul 28, 2018
abstract · pdf · html · Preprint - work in progress

add comment on HN