Multi-layer neural networks are among the most powerful models in machine learning, yet the fundamental reasons for this success defy mathematical understanding. Learning a neural network requires to optimize a non-convex high-dimensional objective (risk function), a problem which is usually attacked using stochastic gradient descent (SGD). Does SGD converge to a global optimum of the risk or only to a local optimum? In the first case, does this happen because local minima are absent, or because SGD somehow avoids them? In the second, why do local minima reached by SGD have good generalization properties? In this paper we consider a simple case, namely two-layers neural networks, and prove that -in a suitable scaling limit- SGD dynamics is captured by a certain non-linear partial differential equation (PDE) that we call distributional dynamics (DD). We then consider several specific examples, and show how DD can be used to prove convergence of SGD to networks with nearlyideal generalization error. This description allows to 'average-out' some of the complexities of the landscape of neural networks, and can be used to prove a general convergence result for noisy SGD.

本论文在研究多层神经网络的优化问题，发现随机梯度下降算法会收敛到一个全局最优点，且这一点具有很好的泛化能力。结果表明，适当的尺度下，随机梯度下降动态可以通过某个非线性偏微分方程捕捉，从而证明了SGD的收敛性。

两层神经网络格势的均场视角