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Wide Neural Networks Are Feature Learners, Not Kernel Machines (arxiv.org)
2 points by edwardjhu on Feb 9, 2021 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: As a network grows infinitely wide, the usual scaling freezes its internal patterns; a small scaling change keeps them changing, and the limit is computed exactly. On word learning and few-shot images this beats the fixed-kernel version, and wider finite networks get closer to it.

Abstract · Feature Learning in Infinite-Width Neural Networks

As its width tends to infinity, a deep neural network's behavior under gradient descent can become simplified and predictable (e.g. given by the Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK)), if it is parametrized appropriately (e.g. the NTK parametrization). However, we show that the standard and NTK parametrizations of a neural network do not admit infinite-width limits that can learn features, which is crucial for pretraining and transfer learning such as with BERT. We propose simple modifications to the standard parametrization to allow for feature learning in the limit. Using the *Tensor Programs* technique, we derive explicit formulas for such limits. On Word2Vec and few-shot learning on Omniglot via MAML, two canonical tasks that rely crucially on feature learning, we compute these limits exactly. We find that they outperform both NTK baselines and finite-width networks, with the latter approaching the infinite-width feature learning performance as width increases. More generally, we classify a natural space of neural network parametrizations that generalizes standard, NTK, and Mean Field parametrizations. We show 1) any parametrization in this space either admits feature learning or has an infinite-width training dynamics given by kernel gradient descent, but not both; 2) any such infinite-width limit can be computed using the Tensor Programs technique. Code for our experiments can be found at github.com/edwardjhu/TP4.

Greg Yang, Edward J. Hu
arXiv:2011.14522 · cs.LG, cond-mat.dis-nn, cs.NE · submitted Nov 30, 2020 · updated Jul 15, 2022
abstract · pdf · html · 4th paper in the Tensor Programs series. Appearing in ICML 2021

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Also discussed: Dec 2020 (5 points, 0 comments)