We consider the problem of learning an unknown function @math on the @math -dimensional sphere with respect to the square loss, given i.i.d. samples @math where @math is a feature vector uniformly distributed on the sphere and @math . We study two popular classes of models that can be regarded as linearizations of two-layers neural networks around a random initialization: (RF) The random feature model of Rahimi-Recht; (NT) The neural tangent kernel model of Jacot-Gabriel-Hongler. Both these approaches can also be regarded as randomized approximations of kernel ridge regression (with respect to different kernels), and hence enjoy universal approximation properties when the number of neurons @math diverges, for a fixed dimension @math . We prove that, if both @math and @math are large, the behavior of these models is instead remarkably simpler. If @math , then RF performs no better than linear regression with respect to the raw features @math , and NT performs no better than linear regression with respect to degree-one and two monomials in the @math . More generally, if @math then RF fits at most a degree- @math polynomial in the raw features, and NT fits at most a degree- @math polynomial.
Approximation properties of neural networks and, more generally, nonlinear approximation have been studied in detail in the nineties, see e.g. @cite_17 @cite_2 @cite_4 . The main concern of the present paper is quite different, since we focus on the random feature model, and the (recently proposed) neural tangent model. Further, our focus is on the high-dimensional regime in which @math grows with @math . Most approximation theory literature considers @math fixed, and @math .
@cite_2 @cite_4 @cite_17
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Approximation properties of a class of artificial neural networks are established. It is shown that feedforward networks with one layer of sigmoidal nonlinearities achieve integrated squared error of order O(1 n), where n is the number of nodes. The approximated function is assumed to have a bound on the first moment of the magnitude distribution of the Fourier transform. The nonlinear parameters associated with the sigmoidal nodes, as well as the parameters of linear combination, are adjusted in the approximation. In contrast, it is shown that for series expansions with n terms, in which only the parameters of linear combination are adjusted, the integrated squared approximation error cannot be made smaller than order 1 n sup 2 d uniformly for functions satisfying the same smoothness assumption, where d is the dimension of the input to the function. For the class of functions examined, the approximation rate and the parsimony of the parameterization of the networks are shown to be advantageous in high-dimensional settings. > We consider the problem of learning an unknown function @math on the @math -dimensional sphere with respect to the square loss, given i.i.d. samples @math where @math is a feature vector uniformly distributed on the sphere and @math . We study two popular classes of models that can be regarded as linearizations of two-layers neural networks around a random initialization: (RF) The random feature model of Rahimi-Recht; (NT) The neural tangent kernel model of Jacot-Gabriel-Hongler. Both these approaches can also be regarded as randomized approximations of kernel ridge regression (with respect to different kernels), and hence enjoy universal approximation properties when the number of neurons @math diverges, for a fixed dimension @math . We prove that, if both @math and @math are large, the behavior of these models is instead remarkably simpler. If @math , then RF performs no better than linear regression with respect to the raw features @math , and NT performs no better than linear regression with respect to degree-one and two monomials in the @math . More generally, if @math then RF fits at most a degree- @math polynomial in the raw features, and NT fits at most a degree- @math polynomial. In this paper, we prove a conjecture published in 1989 and also partially address an open problem announced at the Conference on Learning Theory (COLT) 2015. For an expected loss function of a deep nonlinear neural network, we prove the following statements under the independence assumption adopted from recent work: 1) the function is non-convex and non-concave, 2) every local minimum is a global minimum, 3) every critical point that is not a global minimum is a saddle point, and 4) the property of saddle points differs for shallow networks (with three layers) and deeper networks (with more than three layers). Moreover, we prove that the same four statements hold for deep linear neural networks with any depth, any widths and no unrealistic assumptions. As a result, we present an instance, for which we can answer to the following question: how difficult to directly train a deep model in theory? It is more difficult than the classical machine learning models (because of the non-convexity), but not too difficult (because of the nonexistence of poor local minima and the property of the saddle points). We note that even though we have advanced the theoretical foundations of deep learning, there is still a gap between theory and practice. In this paper we demonstrate that finite linear combinations of compositions of a fixed, univariate function and a set of affine functionals can uniformly approximate any continuous function ofn real variables with support in the unit hypercube; only mild conditions are imposed on the univariate function. Our results settle an open question about representability in the class of single hidden layer neural networks. In particular, we show that arbitrary decision regions can be arbitrarily well approximated by continuous feedforward neural networks with only a single internal, hidden layer and any continuous sigmoidal nonlinearity. The paper discusses approximation properties of other possible types of nonlinearities that might be implemented by artificial neural networks.