1,537 research outputs found
Efficient Benchmarking of Algorithm Configuration Procedures via Model-Based Surrogates
The optimization of algorithm (hyper-)parameters is crucial for achieving
peak performance across a wide range of domains, ranging from deep neural
networks to solvers for hard combinatorial problems. The resulting algorithm
configuration (AC) problem has attracted much attention from the machine
learning community. However, the proper evaluation of new AC procedures is
hindered by two key hurdles. First, AC benchmarks are hard to set up. Second
and even more significantly, they are computationally expensive: a single run
of an AC procedure involves many costly runs of the target algorithm whose
performance is to be optimized in a given AC benchmark scenario. One common
workaround is to optimize cheap-to-evaluate artificial benchmark functions
(e.g., Branin) instead of actual algorithms; however, these have different
properties than realistic AC problems. Here, we propose an alternative
benchmarking approach that is similarly cheap to evaluate but much closer to
the original AC problem: replacing expensive benchmarks by surrogate benchmarks
constructed from AC benchmarks. These surrogate benchmarks approximate the
response surface corresponding to true target algorithm performance using a
regression model, and the original and surrogate benchmark share the same
(hyper-)parameter space. In our experiments, we construct and evaluate
surrogate benchmarks for hyperparameter optimization as well as for AC problems
that involve performance optimization of solvers for hard combinatorial
problems, drawing training data from the runs of existing AC procedures. We
show that our surrogate benchmarks capture overall important characteristics of
the AC scenarios, such as high- and low-performing regions, from which they
were derived, while being much easier to use and orders of magnitude cheaper to
evaluate
YAHPO Gym -- An Efficient Multi-Objective Multi-Fidelity Benchmark for Hyperparameter Optimization
When developing and analyzing new hyperparameter optimization methods, it is
vital to empirically evaluate and compare them on well-curated benchmark
suites. In this work, we propose a new set of challenging and relevant
benchmark problems motivated by desirable properties and requirements for such
benchmarks. Our new surrogate-based benchmark collection consists of 14
scenarios that in total constitute over 700 multi-fidelity hyperparameter
optimization problems, which all enable multi-objective hyperparameter
optimization. Furthermore, we empirically compare surrogate-based benchmarks to
the more widely-used tabular benchmarks, and demonstrate that the latter may
produce unfaithful results regarding the performance ranking of HPO methods. We
examine and compare our benchmark collection with respect to defined
requirements and propose a single-objective as well as a multi-objective
benchmark suite on which we compare 7 single-objective and 7 multi-objective
optimizers in a benchmark experiment. Our software is available at
[https://github.com/slds-lmu/yahpo_gym].Comment: Accepted at the First Conference on Automated Machine Learning (Main
Track). 39 pages, 12 tables, 10 figures, 1 listin
Basic Enhancement Strategies When Using Bayesian Optimization for Hyperparameter Tuning of Deep Neural Networks
Compared to the traditional machine learning models, deep neural networks (DNN) are known to be highly sensitive to the choice of hyperparameters. While the required time and effort for manual tuning has been rapidly decreasing for the well developed and commonly used DNN architectures, undoubtedly DNN hyperparameter optimization will continue to be a major burden whenever a new DNN architecture needs to be designed, a new task needs to be solved, a new dataset needs to be addressed, or an existing DNN needs to be improved further. For hyperparameter optimization of general machine learning problems, numerous automated solutions have been developed where some of the most popular solutions are based on Bayesian Optimization (BO). In this work, we analyze four fundamental strategies for enhancing BO when it is used for DNN hyperparameter optimization. Specifically, diversification, early termination, parallelization, and cost function transformation are investigated. Based on the analysis, we provide a simple yet robust algorithm for DNN hyperparameter optimization - DEEP-BO (Diversified, Early-termination-Enabled, and Parallel Bayesian Optimization). When evaluated over six DNN benchmarks, DEEP-BO mostly outperformed well-known solutions including GP-Hedge, BOHB, and the speed-up variants that use Median Stopping Rule or Learning Curve Extrapolation. In fact, DEEP-BO consistently provided the top, or at least close to the top, performance over all the benchmark types that we have tested. This indicates that DEEP-BO is a robust solution compared to the existing solutions. The DEEP-BO code is publicly available at <uri>https://github.com/snu-adsl/DEEP-BO</uri>
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