In plain words: Instead of picking a network size up front and retraining from scratch, this starts tiny and adds neurons or layers when that would lower the training loss, keeping learning intact. It handled classification and regression, even when the right size was unknown, without restarting.
Abstract
The results of training a neural network are heavily dependent on the architecture chosen; and even a modification of only its size, however small, typically involves restarting the training process. In contrast to this, we begin training with a small architecture, only increase its capacity as necessary for the problem, and avoid interfering with previous optimization while doing so. We thereby introduce a natural gradient based approach which intuitively expands both the width and depth of a neural network when this is likely to substantially reduce the hypothetical converged training loss. We prove an upper bound on the ``rate'' at which neurons are added, and a computationally cheap lower bound on the expansion score. We illustrate the benefits of such Self-Expanding Neural Networks with full connectivity and convolutions in both classification and regression problems, including those where the appropriate architecture size is substantially uncertain a priori.
Rupert Mitchell, Robin Menzenbach, Kristian Kersting, Martin Mundt
arXiv:2307.04526 · cs.LG · submitted Jul 10, 2023 · updated Feb 9, 2024
abstract · pdf · html · 17 pages, 7 figures