Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory

© 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Identifying computational mechanisms for memorization and retrieval of data is a long-standing problem at the intersection of machine learning and neuroscience. Our main finding is that standard overparameterized deep neural networks trained...

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Main Authors: Radhakrishnan, Adityanarayanan, Belkin, Mikhail, Uhler, Caroline
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2021
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134539
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author Radhakrishnan, Adityanarayanan
Belkin, Mikhail
Uhler, Caroline
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems
Radhakrishnan, Adityanarayanan
Belkin, Mikhail
Uhler, Caroline
author_sort Radhakrishnan, Adityanarayanan
collection MIT
description © 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Identifying computational mechanisms for memorization and retrieval of data is a long-standing problem at the intersection of machine learning and neuroscience. Our main finding is that standard overparameterized deep neural networks trained using standard optimization methods implement such a mechanism for real-valued data. We provide empirical evidence that 1) overparameterized autoencoders store training samples as attractors and thus iterating the learned map leads to sample recovery, and that 2) the same mechanism allows for encoding sequences of examples and serves as an even more efficient mechanism for memory than autoencoding. Theoretically, we prove that when trained on a single example, autoencoders store the example as an attractor. Lastly, by treating a sequence encoder as a composition of maps, we prove that sequence encoding provides a more efficient mechanism for memory than autoencoding.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1345392023-01-10T19:37:18Z Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory Radhakrishnan, Adityanarayanan Belkin, Mikhail Uhler, Caroline Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society © 2020 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Identifying computational mechanisms for memorization and retrieval of data is a long-standing problem at the intersection of machine learning and neuroscience. Our main finding is that standard overparameterized deep neural networks trained using standard optimization methods implement such a mechanism for real-valued data. We provide empirical evidence that 1) overparameterized autoencoders store training samples as attractors and thus iterating the learned map leads to sample recovery, and that 2) the same mechanism allows for encoding sequences of examples and serves as an even more efficient mechanism for memory than autoencoding. Theoretically, we prove that when trained on a single example, autoencoders store the example as an attractor. Lastly, by treating a sequence encoder as a composition of maps, we prove that sequence encoding provides a more efficient mechanism for memory than autoencoding. 2021-10-27T20:05:28Z 2021-10-27T20:05:28Z 2020 2021-03-19T15:25:38Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134539 en 10.1073/PNAS.2005013117 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS
spellingShingle Radhakrishnan, Adityanarayanan
Belkin, Mikhail
Uhler, Caroline
Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory
title Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory
title_full Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory
title_fullStr Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory
title_full_unstemmed Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory
title_short Overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory
title_sort overparameterized neural networks implement associative memory
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/134539
work_keys_str_mv AT radhakrishnanadityanarayanan overparameterizedneuralnetworksimplementassociativememory
AT belkinmikhail overparameterizedneuralnetworksimplementassociativememory
AT uhlercaroline overparameterizedneuralnetworksimplementassociativememory