Safe-EF: Error Feedback for Nonsmooth Constrained Optimization

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06053v1
• Date: Fri, 09 May 2025 13:49:05 GMT
• Title: Safe-EF: Error Feedback for Nonsmooth Constrained Optimization
• Authors: Rustem Islamov, Yarden As, Ilyas Fatkhullin,
• Abstract summary: Communication compression with contractive compressors (e.g., Top-K) is often preferable in practice but can degrade performance without proper handling.<n>Error feedback (EF) mitigates such issues but has been largely restricted for smooth, unconstrained problems.<n>We advance our understanding of EF in the canonical non-smooth convex setting by establishing new lower complexity bounds for first-order algorithms with contractive compression.<n>We propose Safe-EF, a novel algorithm that matches our lower bound up to a constant while enforcing safety constraints essential for practical applications.
• Score: 6.247092201631672
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Federated learning faces severe communication bottlenecks due to the high dimensionality of model updates. Communication compression with contractive compressors (e.g., Top-K) is often preferable in practice but can degrade performance without proper handling. Error feedback (EF) mitigates such issues but has been largely restricted for smooth, unconstrained problems, limiting its real-world applicability where non-smooth objectives and safety constraints are critical. We advance our understanding of EF in the canonical non-smooth convex setting by establishing new lower complexity bounds for first-order algorithms with contractive compression. Next, we propose Safe-EF, a novel algorithm that matches our lower bound (up to a constant) while enforcing safety constraints essential for practical applications. Extending our approach to the stochastic setting, we bridge the gap between theory and practical implementation. Extensive experiments in a reinforcement learning setup, simulating distributed humanoid robot training, validate the effectiveness of Safe-EF in ensuring safety and reducing communication complexity.

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