Neural Loss Function Evolution for Large-Scale Image Classifier
  Convolutional Neural Networks
Brandon Morgan Dean Hougen
For classification, neural networks typically learn by minimizing
cross-entropy, but are evaluated and compared using accuracy. This disparity
suggests neural loss function search (NLFS), the search for a drop-in
replacement loss function of cross-entropy for neural networks. We apply NLFS
to image classifier convolutional neural networks. We propose a new search
space for NLFS that encourages more diverse loss functions to be explored, and
a surrogate function that accurately transfers to large-scale convolutional
neural networks. We search the space using regularized evolution, a
mutation-only aging genetic algorithm. After evolution and a proposed loss
function elimination protocol, we transferred the final loss functions across
multiple architectures, datasets, and image augmentation techniques to assess
generalization. In the end, we discovered three new loss functions, called
NeuroLoss1, NeuroLoss2, and NeuroLoss3 that were able to outperform
cross-entropy in terms of a higher mean test accuracy as a simple drop-in
replacement loss function across the majority of experiments.