Implicit regularization in AI meets generalized hardness of approximation in optimization: Sharp results for diagonal linear networks

Abstract Understanding the implicit regularization imposed by neural network architectures and gradient based optimization methods is a key challenge in deep learning and AI. In this work we provide sharp results for the implicit regularization imposed by the gradient flow of Diagonal Linear Networks (DLNs) in the over-parameterized regression setting and link this to the phenomenon of phase transitions in generalized hardness of approximation (GHA). GHA generalizes the phenomenon of hardness of approximation from computer science to, among others, continuous and robust optimization. It is well-known that the $$\ell ^1$$ ℓ 1 -norm of the gradient flow of DLNs with tiny initialization converges to the objective function of basis pursuit. We enhance these results by showing that the gradient flow of DLNs with tiny initialization approximates minimizers of the basis pursuit optimization problem (as opposed to just the objective function), and we obtain new and sharp convergence bounds with respect to the initialization size. Non-sharpness of our results would imply that the GHA phenomenon would not occur for the basis pursuit optimization problem—which is a contradiction—thus implying sharpness. Moreover, we characterize which $$\ell _1$$ ℓ 1 minimizer of the basis pursuit problem is chosen by the gradient flow whenever the minimizer is not unique. Interestingly, this depends on the degree of homogeneity of the DLN.