3 ms·

Plus or minus shouldn't make any difference as long as your input distribution is symmetric around zero. A simple transformation shows you can get the same eff

Plus or minus shouldn't make any difference as long as your input distribution is symmetric around zero. A simple transformation shows you can get the same effect by just flipping the input the output and the weights. The weights are initialized from a symmetric distribution, so the only difference may come from having the input nonevenly distributed around zero. y = x - relu(Mx + b) -y = -x + relu((-M)(-x) + b) y' = x' + relu(M'x' + b) Have you tried normalizing your input to have zero mean?

thesz 7y ago
ReLU(-x) is not equal to ReLU(x). The output after ReLU is all non-negatives. So subtraction, actually, does a correction on input. Yes, I tried normalization on input values and normalization and cross-correlation reduction of outputs of affine transformations. They all have separate positive effects on speed of training and final accuracy.
- bonoboTP 7y ago
  I know relu(-x) is not relu(x). I think the equations I wrote are correct. My point is, your version is not fundamentally different because we can get your effect by using the standard version and flipping the input to the network, the M matrix and then the output will come out with the sign flipped as well. If you put a sign-flipped fully conn layer and a softmax on this (for example) the result will be the same. The only reason that yours might be better is an asymmetric distribution of x o around 0. If you flip the sign on x, you should get the same benefits. To summarize: your net is not exactly the same as the usual one, but if you train your version on x and I train the usual version with -x, our results will be indistinguishable.
  - thesz 7y ago
    No, you can't "flip" input because it is, most probably, output of ReLUs which are all non-negative. In that case you have to learn flipping and all that correction at the Mx+b part, which is, let's say, in the range of tens of thousands of parameters.
    - bonoboTP 7y ago
      I meant the input input. The first input. Just flip the fist input to the net. Then the flip will automatically cascade through all layers. The M matrices are initialized from a distribution that is symmetric around zero. They don't need to be explicitly flipped, it's not a "correction" in that sense. As long as you only have this type of modules and normal non-residual ReLU layers, it will be equivalent. The net is not equivalent but if you include the random init in your analysis, then you can see there will be a bijection. I don't think I can explain this well over comments, think about what happens if you initialize your net from scratch. "Self-contained though experiment: Does it make a difference if you multiply all weights by -1 directly after init? " Once that is clear in itself, think of what happens if you init and flip all your very first inputs, the inputs that you feed to the start of the network.
      - thesz 7y ago
        So I made simple experiment in ghci (the "$" operators is a function application: f $ g $ x === f(g(x))): Prelude> let relu x = (x + abs x)/2 Prelude> let res x = x - relu x Prelude> let f x = res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [-2.0,-1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0] Prelude> let res x = x + relu (negate x) Prelude> let f x = res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0,2.0] Prelude> let f x = res $ res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0,2.0] Prelude> let res x = x - relu x Prelude> let f x = res $ res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [-2.0,-1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0] The networks pass different inputs, actually. I have to add that you cannot have zero mean outputs of residual layer with the definition res x = x + relu (Ax + b). In that case outputs will have non-zero mean and subsequent layers will have to correct for that.
        bonoboTP 7y ago
        I never said relu(-anything). Please read the equations I wrote above with extreme care to where the minus signs are. They are at precise locations. I also emphasize that my explanation only works if you take into account the fact that the net is randomly initialized. I wrote a quoted sentence in my prev comment which was carefully formulated to build up the right intuition. I don't think I can explain it better. But I'll try: the sequence of actions (random init, teain your residual net, test your net) is indistinguishable in effect from (random init, train usual net on negated starting input, and test on negated input). The second version will be indistinguishable from running a repeated experiment of the first type with a new random init.

thesz 7y ago

ReLU(-x) is not equal to ReLU(x). The output after ReLU is all non-negatives. So subtraction, actually, does a correction on input. Yes, I tried normalization on input values and normalization and cross-correlation reduction of outputs of affine transformations. They all have separate positive effects on speed of training and final accuracy.

bonoboTP 7y ago
I know relu(-x) is not relu(x). I think the equations I wrote are correct. My point is, your version is not fundamentally different because we can get your effect by using the standard version and flipping the input to the network, the M matrix and then the output will come out with the sign flipped as well. If you put a sign-flipped fully conn layer and a softmax on this (for example) the result will be the same. The only reason that yours might be better is an asymmetric distribution of x o around 0. If you flip the sign on x, you should get the same benefits. To summarize: your net is not exactly the same as the usual one, but if you train your version on x and I train the usual version with -x, our results will be indistinguishable.
- thesz 7y ago
  No, you can't "flip" input because it is, most probably, output of ReLUs which are all non-negative. In that case you have to learn flipping and all that correction at the Mx+b part, which is, let's say, in the range of tens of thousands of parameters.
  - bonoboTP 7y ago
    I meant the input input. The first input. Just flip the fist input to the net. Then the flip will automatically cascade through all layers. The M matrices are initialized from a distribution that is symmetric around zero. They don't need to be explicitly flipped, it's not a "correction" in that sense. As long as you only have this type of modules and normal non-residual ReLU layers, it will be equivalent. The net is not equivalent but if you include the random init in your analysis, then you can see there will be a bijection. I don't think I can explain this well over comments, think about what happens if you initialize your net from scratch. "Self-contained though experiment: Does it make a difference if you multiply all weights by -1 directly after init? " Once that is clear in itself, think of what happens if you init and flip all your very first inputs, the inputs that you feed to the start of the network.
    - thesz 7y ago
      So I made simple experiment in ghci (the "$" operators is a function application: f $ g $ x === f(g(x))): Prelude> let relu x = (x + abs x)/2 Prelude> let res x = x - relu x Prelude> let f x = res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [-2.0,-1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0] Prelude> let res x = x + relu (negate x) Prelude> let f x = res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0,2.0] Prelude> let f x = res $ res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0,2.0] Prelude> let res x = x - relu x Prelude> let f x = res $ res $ res x Prelude> map f [-2..2] [-2.0,-1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0] The networks pass different inputs, actually. I have to add that you cannot have zero mean outputs of residual layer with the definition res x = x + relu (Ax + b). In that case outputs will have non-zero mean and subsequent layers will have to correct for that.
      - bonoboTP 7y ago
        I never said relu(-anything). Please read the equations I wrote above with extreme care to where the minus signs are. They are at precise locations. I also emphasize that my explanation only works if you take into account the fact that the net is randomly initialized. I wrote a quoted sentence in my prev comment which was carefully formulated to build up the right intuition. I don't think I can explain it better. But I'll try: the sequence of actions (random init, teain your residual net, test your net) is indistinguishable in effect from (random init, train usual net on negated starting input, and test on negated input). The second version will be indistinguishable from running a repeated experiment of the first type with a new random init.