How Gradient Descent Algorithm Works

How Gradient Descent Algorithm Works

If you're new to the world of machine learning, you may have heard of the gradient descent algorithm. It's a powerful tool used to optimize the parameters of a model and minimize its error or cost function. 

In simple terms, gradient descent is a process of finding the minimum point of a function by following the steepest descent direction.

It's used in a wide range of machine learning algorithms, Such as

Understanding how gradient descent works is essential for building effective machine learning models, as it can help you find the best possible values for your model's parameters.

How Gradient Descent Algorithm Works

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Whether you're a data scientist, a software engineer, or just someone curious about machine learning, this beginner's guide will give you the foundational knowledge you need to understand gradient descent and its applications.

Before we drive further, below is the list of concepts you are going to learn in this article.  

What is Gradient Descent? 

Gradient descent is a widely used optimization algorithm that is fundamental to many popular machine learning algorithms. Put simply; gradient descent is a method for finding the minimum value of a function, which is a critical task in machine learning. 

What is Gradient Descent

Gradient descent is an iterative optimization algorithm that is widely used in machine learning. At a high level, gradient descent is a method for finding the minimum value of a function by iteratively adjusting the function's parameters based on the gradient (i.e., the direction of the steepest descent). 

By using gradient descent to minimize the cost function of a machine learning model, we can find the best set of model parameters for accurate predictions. This means that it helps us find the best values for our model’s parameters so that our model can make accurate predictions.

Why Is Gradient Descent Necessary for Machine Learning?

Gradient descent is necessary for optimizing and fine-tuning the parameters of a machine learning model. In fact, it is the backbone of many machine learning algorithms

Gradient descent aims to minimize a model's cost or loss function, which measures how well the model performs. 

By reducing the cost function, the model becomes better at making predictions and can generalize better to new data. The gradient descent process involves iteratively adjusting the model parameters based on the gradient of the cost function. 

This means that the model moves toward the steepest descent towards the minimum point of the cost function. With gradient descent, finding the optimal set of parameters for a given model would be much easier, and the model's performance would improve as a result.

What is a gradient, and how is it used in a gradient descent algorithm?

A gradient is a derivative of a function with more than one input variable in machine learning.  In other words, it assesses how sensitive a function's output is to input changes.

What is a gradient

This information is critical for the gradient descent algorithm, which uses the gradient to update the parameters in the opposite direction of the gradient towards the cost function's minimum point.

The gradient points toward the steepest ascent, so we simply negate the gradient vector to find the direction of the steepest descent. The gradient vector's magnitude tells us the cost function's slope in that direction, which is useful for determining the step size of the gradient descent algorithm. 

If the slope is steep, we take a larger step towards the minimum point, and if the slope is shallow, we take a smaller step to avoid overshooting the minimum point.

It is worth noting that the gradient from X0 to X1 is substantially longer than the one from X3 to X4. This is due to a decrease in the steepness/slope of the hill, which defines the length of the vector. 

This precisely illustrates the hill example since the hill becomes less steep as one climbs higher. As a result, a lower gradient corresponds to a lower slope and a smaller step size for the hill climber.

What is a learning rate, and how is it used in gradient descent?

The learning rate is a hyperparameter that determines how big of steps we take along our cost function while trying to reach its minimum value. In other words, it controls how much the parameters are adjusted in the direction of the negative gradient. The learning rate is a critical parameter that can significantly impact the convergence and accuracy of the model.

If the learning rate is too small, the algorithm takes small steps towards the minimum point, which can lead to slow convergence and the possibility of getting stuck in a local minimum. On the other hand, if the learning rate is too large, the algorithm takes large steps towards the minimum point, which can cause overshooting and oscillation around the minimum point.

Therefore, choosing an appropriate learning rate is crucial for the success of the gradient descent algorithm. Typically, the learning rate is determined through trial and error or using optimization techniques such as grid search or random search.

What is a cost function, and how is it minimized using gradient descent?

A cost function (also known as a loss function) in machine learning is a function that evaluates the difference between the expected and actual output. A cost function, in other terms, is a mathematical function that measures how well your model fits your data. 

The learning algorithm aims to minimize this cost function, representing how well the model performs on training data.

Gradient descent is a popular optimization approach for minimizing cost functions. Gradient descent works by computing the gradient of the cost function with respect to the model parameters and updating them in the direction of the negative gradient. This procedure is continued until the algorithm converges.

How Gradient Descent Algorithm Works

Gradient descent is an iterative optimization algorithm that finds the local minimum of a differentiable function. The basic idea behind gradient descent is to iteratively update our model’s parameters in order to minimize a cost function. 

How Gradient Descent Algorithm Works

The beginning point (seen in the above figure) is used to measure performance since it is regarded an arbitrary place. At each step, we calculate the gradient of the cost function with respect to our model’s parameters and use it to determine which direction will lead us closer to the minimum value of our cost function.  Furthermore, this slope will influence parameter updates (weights and bias).

By repeatedly taking small steps in this direction, we can eventually reach the minimum value of our cost function and improve our model’s accuracy, called the point of convergence.

The basic idea behind gradient descent algorithm

Gradient descent is a first-order optimization algorithm used to minimize an objective function. The idea behind gradient descent is to iteratively adjust the parameters of a function to minimize its error. 

The algorithm works by computing the gradient of the objective function with respect to the parameters and updating the parameters in the direction of the steepest descent. This process is repeated until the algorithm converges to a local minimum.

The mathematical formulation of gradient descent

Gradient descent is an optimization algorithm used to find the minimum value of a function, often employed in machine learning and deep learning for optimizing loss functions. Here's a brief explanation of the mathematical formulation of gradient descent:

1. Objective function: First, we define an objective function, typically represented as f(x), that we want to minimize. In machine learning, the loss or cost function often measures the difference between the model's predictions and the actual target values.

2. Gradient calculation: The gradient of the function, ∇f(x), is a vector that points in the direction of the steepest increase of the function at point x. It's calculated by taking the partial derivatives of the function with respect to each variable (i.e., the model's parameters). The gradient gives us the direction we should move in to minimize the function.

3. Update rule: To perform the gradient descent, we iteratively update the variables (parameters) according to the following rule:

   x_new = x_old - α * ∇f(x_old)

 Here,

  • x_old represents the current values of the variables, 
  • α is the learning rate (a hyperparameter that determines the step size of each update), 
  • x_new are the updated values of the variables. 

The learning rate controls how aggressively the algorithm moves towards the minimum, with smaller values leading to slower convergence and larger values potentially causing overshooting or instability.

4. Convergence: We repeat the update step until the algorithm converges, which means that the gradient becomes very close to zero (indicating that we have found a minimum) or the change in the function value between iterations falls below a predefined threshold. The stopping criteria can also be based on the maximum number of iterations allowed.

In summary, the gradient descent algorithm involves calculating the gradient of the objective function and updating the variables iteratively based on the gradient until convergence.

The learning rate plays a crucial role in controlling the speed and stability of the algorithm. Gradient descent is widely used in machine learning and deep learning for optimizing model parameters to minimize the loss function.

The step-by-step process of performing gradient descent

The step-by-step process of performing gradient descent

The step-by-step process of performing gradient descent can be summarized in the following steps:

  1. Initialize the parameters: We start by initializing the parameters with some arbitrary values.

  2. Calculate the cost function: We calculate the cost function by evaluating the objective function with the current values of the parameters.

  3. Calculate the gradient: We calculate the gradient of the cost function with respect to each parameter.

  4. Update the parameters: We update the parameters by subtracting a fraction of the gradient from the current values of the parameters. The learning rate determines this fraction.

  5. Repeat steps 2-4: We repeat steps 2-4 until the cost function converges to a minimum or a predetermined number of iterations is reached.

Note: It's important to remember that gradient descent can converge to a local minimum instead of a global minimum, especially when the cost function is non-convex. Various techniques, such as using different initialization values or optimizing the learning rate, can help overcome this issue.

Different Types of Gradient Descent Algorithms

Several types of gradient descent algorithms can be used to optimize a cost function. The most common types are batch gradient descent, stochastic gradient descent, and mini-batch gradient descent.

Different Types of Gradient Descent Algorithms
  • Batch gradient descent calculates the gradient using all of the training data at each step. 
  • Stochastic gradient descent calculates the gradient using only one training example at each step. 
  • Mini-batch gradient descent calculates the gradient using a small subset of the training data at each step. 

Each algorithm type has its advantages and disadvantages and can be used in different situations.

Batch Gradient Descent

In this algorithm, the whole dataset is used to compute the gradient of the cost function. The parameters are then updated in the opposite direction of the gradient, multiplied by the learning rate. 

Batch gradient descent is computationally expensive, requiring the entire dataset to be loaded into memory and the cost function to be evaluated for each example.

Pros:

  • Efficient for small datasets and well-behaved cost functions
  • Guaranteed convergence to a global minimum
  • Each iteration computes the gradient for the entire dataset, which can lead to more accurate results.

Cons:

  • Computationally expensive for large datasets, as it requires processing the entire dataset for each iteration
  • May converge slowly for certain cost functions
  • May get stuck in local minima

Stochastic Gradient Descent

In this algorithm, the parameters are updated after each training example. The gradient of the cost function is computed using only the current example, and the parameters are updated in the opposite direction of the gradient, multiplied by the learning rate.

Stochastic gradient descent is faster than batch gradient descent, but it can be noisier due to the high variance of the cost function estimates.

Pros:

  • Computationally efficient for large datasets, as it only requires processing one training example per iteration
  • May converge more quickly than batch gradient descent for certain cost functions
  • It can escape local minima due to its stochastic nature

Cons:

  • Results may need to be more accurate due to the noisy updates from using only one training example per iteration.
  • It may require more iterations to converge to a minimum compared to batch gradient descent
  • It may not converge to a global minimum due to its stochastic nature

Mini-batch Gradient Descent

The gradient of the cost function is computed using the mini-batch, and the parameters are updated in the opposite direction of the gradient, multiplied by the learning rate. Mini-batch gradient descent is a compromise between batch gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent.

 It can use vectorization to speed up the computations and provide a more stable estimate of the gradient than stochastic gradient descent.

Pros:

  • Efficient for datasets that are too large for batch gradient descent but too small for stochastic gradient descent
  • Can leverage the benefits of both batch and stochastic gradient descent
  • Results may be more stable compared to stochastic gradient descent due to the use of multiple training examples per iteration.

Cons:

  • Requires tuning of the mini-batch size, which can impact the convergence rate and the quality of the results
  • It may not converge to a global minimum due to its stochastic nature
  • Computationally more expensive compared to stochastic gradient descent

Each of these types of gradient descent algorithms has its own advantages and disadvantages. The choice of algorithm depends on the problem being solved and the available computing resources.

Using Gradient Descent for  Boston Housing Price Prediction

Gradient descent is an extremely useful technique that may be used in various situations. Its real-world applications include developing neural networks, a machine learning model inspired by the structure of the human brain. 

Using Gradient Descent for  Boston Housing Price Prediction

We can identify the appropriate weights and biases that allow the network to predict outcomes properly based on input data by utilizing gradient descent to minimize the cost function of a neural network. 

Here’s an  implementation of Gradient Descent on Linear regression using the Boston Housing dataset from Python

Step 1: Import the necessary libraries

First, we need to import the necessary python libraries, such as NumPy, Pandas, and scikit-learn. Here's an example:

Step 2: Load the dataset

We can load the Boston Housing dataset using the load_boston() function in scikit-learn. Here's an example:

Step 3: Preprocessing the Data

Preprocess the data before we can apply gradient descent to the dataset, we need to preprocess the data. This involves scaling the features so that they have a mean of 0 and a variance of 1 Here's an example:

Step 4:Defining the Cost Function 

We can define the cost function for gradient descent. Here, we will use mean squared error (MSE) as the cost function.

Step 5:Implementing Gradient Descent

We can now implement the gradient descent algorithm using the following steps:

  1. Initialize the weights with zeros.
  2. Define the gradient Descent Function
  3. Call the gradient descent function with the appropriate learning rate and the number of iterations.

Step 6:Visualizing the Cost Function 

We can plot the cost history to visualize the decrease in cost function with each iteration.

Cost Function Graph

Step 7: Making predictions

We can not make predictions using the trained models

You can play around with the learning rate and the number of iterations to see how they affect the algorithm's performance.

Challenges and pitfalls of gradient descent

Gradient descent is a widely used optimization algorithm in machine learning but has challenges and pitfalls. As we've seen in the previous sections, gradient descent requires carefully selecting hyperparameters such as learning rate. It can be prone to overfitting and getting stuck in local minima. 

In this section, we will explore these challenges in more detail and discuss strategies for addressing them to ensure the successful implementation of gradient descent in machine learning applications.

The problem of local minima in Gradient Descent

One of the challenges of gradient descent is that it can converge to a local minimum of the cost function instead of the global minimum. This can happen when the cost function has multiple local minima, and the optimization algorithm gets stuck in one of them.

The problem of local minima in Gradient Descent

One way to address this challenge is to use stochastic gradient descent, which introduces randomness into the optimization process and can help escape local minima. Another approach is to use more advanced optimization algorithms, such as conjugate gradient or BFGS, which are less prone to getting stuck in local minima.

The problem of learning rate selection in Gradient Descent

The learning rate is a hyperparameter that determines the step size taken during each iteration of gradient descent. 

If the learning rate is too small, the optimization process can be slow and may take a long time to converge. On the other hand, if the learning rate is too large, the optimization process can overshoot the minimum and fail to converge. 

The problem of learning rate selection in Gradient Descent

Selecting an appropriate learning rate can be challenging, and several strategies exist, such as grid search or using adaptive learning rates.

The problem of overfitting in Gradient Descent

The problem of overfitting is one of the biggest challenges in gradient descent and machine learning in general.

 Overfitting occurs when a model becomes too complex and starts to fit the training data too closely, resulting in poor performance on new, unseen data. This can happen when the model has too many parameters relative to the available data. 

Regularization techniques such as L1 (Lasso Regression) and L2 (Ridge Regression) regularization can help prevent overfitting by adding a penalty to the cost function for large parameter values.

Vanishing and Exploding gradient

Vanishing and exploding gradients are challenges that can occur in deep learning models using gradient descent. 

Vanishing gradients occur when the gradients become very small than expected. During backpropagation, this gradient becomes smaller, causing a decrease in the learning rate of earlier layers than the later layer of the network. This can result in the network being unable to learn complex relationships in the data and underfitting.

On the other hand, exploding gradients occur when the gradients become very large as they are back-propagated through the network, causing the weights to be updated too much and leading to unstable behaviour and overfitting.

These problems are often encountered in deep neural networks, where the gradients can either vanish or explode as they are backpropagated through many layers.

 One solution to these problems is to use normalization techniques such as batch normalization, layer normalization, or weight normalization, which can help stabilize the gradients and improve the network's performance. 

Another solution is to use gradient clipping, which limits the maximum or minimum value of the gradients to prevent them from becoming too large or too small.

Conclusion

In conclusion, gradient descent is a crucial optimization algorithm in machine learning that helps minimise the cost function to improve the model's performance. 

This article taught us the importance of gradient descent, how it works, and its different types, challenges, and solutions.

Summary of key takeaways

  • To summarize, we have learned that gradient descent minimises the cost function and improves the model's performance. It uses the gradient, learning rate, and cost function to update the model weights iteratively. 
  • The different types of gradient descent include batch gradient descent, stochastic gradient descent, and mini-batch gradient descent. 
  • The challenges and pitfalls of gradient descent include overfitting, vanishing and exploding gradients and learning rate selection. 

As machine learning continues to grow and develop, it's important for us to continue researching and improving upon optimization algorithms like gradient descent. One promising direction is exploring the use of different cost functions and learning rates to enhance model performance further. 

Additionally, advanced optimization algorithms, such as

  • Adam, 
  • Adagrad, 
  • RMSprop 

These may offer improved performance over gradient descent in certain scenarios. 

Finally, developing more efficient and scalable implementations of gradient descent will be crucial for handling modern datasets and models' increasing size and complexity. Exciting research opportunities lie ahead as we continue to explore and improve upon gradient descent and other optimization algorithms in the field of machine learning.

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