# Notes on fastai Book Ch. 17

ai
fastai
notes
pytorch
Chapter 17 covers building a neural network from the foundations.
Published

March 29, 2022

import fastbook
fastbook.setup_book()
import inspect
def print_source(obj):
for line in inspect.getsource(obj).split("\n"):
print(line)

## Building a Neural Net Layer from Scratch

### Modeling a Neuron

• a neuron receives a given number of inputs and has an internal weight for each of them
• the neuron sums the weighted inputs to produce an output and adds an inner bias
• $$out = \sum_{i=1}^{n}{x_{i}w_{i}+b}$$, where $$(x_{1},\ldots,x_{n})$$ are inputs, $$(w_{1},\ldots,w_{n})$$ are the weights, and $$b$$ is the bias
•   output = sum([x*w for x,w in zip(inputs, weights)]) + bias
• the output of the neuron is fed to a nonlinear function called an activation function
• the output of the nonlinear activation function is fed as input to another neuron
• Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) activation function:
•   def relu(x): return x if x >= 0 else 0
• a deep learning model is build by stacking a lot of neurons in successive layers
• a linear layer: all inputs are linked to each neuron in the layer
• need to compute the dot product for each input and each neuron with a given weight
• python sum([x*w for x,w in zip(input,weight)]

#### The output of a fully connected layer

• $$y_{i,j} = \sum_{k=1}^{n}{x_{i,k}w_{k,j}+b_{j}}$$
•   y[i,j] = sum([a*b for a,b in zip(x[i,:],w[j,:])]) + b[j]
•   y = x @ w.t() + b
• x: a matrix containing the inputs with a size of batch_size by n_inputs
• w: a matrix containing the weights for the neurons with a size of n_neurons by n_inputs
• b: a vector containing the biases for the neurons with a size of n_neurons
• y: the output of the fully connected layer of size batch_size by n_neurons
• @: a matrix multiplication
• w.t(): the transpose matrix of w

### Matrix Multiplication from Scratch

• Need three nested loops
1. for the row indices
2. for the column indices
3. for the inner sum

import torch
from torch import tensor

def matmul(a,b):
# Get the number of rows and columns for the two matrices
ar,ac = a.shape
br,bc = b.shape
# The number of columns in the first matrix need to be
# the same as the number of rows in the second matrix
assert ac==br
# Initialize the output matrix
c = torch.zeros(ar, bc)
# For each row in the first matrix
for i in range(ar):
# For each column in the second matrix
for j in range(bc):
# For each column in the first matrix
# Element-wise multiplication
# Sum the products
for k in range(ac): c[i,j] += a[i,k] * b[k,j]
return c

m1 = torch.randn(5,28*28)
m2 = torch.randn(784,10)

#### Using nested for-loops

%time t1=matmul(m1, m2)
    CPU times: user 329 ms, sys: 0 ns, total: 329 ms
Wall time: 328 ms

%timeit -n 20 t1=matmul(m1, m2)
    325 ms ± 801 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 20 loops each)

Note: Using loops is extremely inefficient!!! Avoid loops whenever possible.

#### Using PyTorch’s built-in matrix multiplication operator

• written in C++ to make it fast
• need to vectorize operations on tensors to take advantage of speed of PyTorch
• use element-wise arithmetic and broadcasting

%time t2=m1@m2
    CPU times: user 190 µs, sys: 0 ns, total: 190 µs
Wall time: 132 µs

%timeit -n 20 t2=m1@m2
    The slowest run took 9.84 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached.
6.42 µs ± 8.4 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 20 loops each)

### Elementwise Arithmetic

• addition: +
• subtraction: -
• multiplication: *
• division: /
• greater than: >
• less than: <
• equal to: ==

Note: Both tensors need to have the same shape to perform element-wise arithmetic.

a = tensor([10., 6, -4])
b = tensor([2., 8, 7])
a + b
    tensor([12., 14.,  3.])

a < b
    tensor([False,  True,  True])

#### Reduction Operators

• return tensors with only one element
• all: Tests if all elements evaluate to True.
• sum: Returns the sum of all elements in the tensor.
• mean: Returns the mean value of all elements in the tensor.

# Check if every element in matrix a is less than the corresponding element in matrix b
((a < b).all(),
# Check if every element in matrix a is equal to the corresponding element in matrix b
(a==b).all())
    (tensor(False), tensor(False))

# Convert tensor to a plain python number or boolean
(a + b).mean().item()
    9.666666984558105

m = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]])
m*m
    tensor([[ 1.,  4.,  9.],
[16., 25., 36.],
[49., 64., 81.]])

# Attempt to perform element-wise arithmetic on tensors with different shapes
n = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6]])
m*n
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

RuntimeError                              Traceback (most recent call last)

/tmp/ipykernel_38356/3763285369.py in <module>
1 n = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6]])
----> 2 m*n

RuntimeError: The size of tensor a (3) must match the size of tensor b (2) at non-singleton dimension 0

# Replace the inner-most for-loop with element-wise arithmetic
def matmul(a,b):
ar,ac = a.shape
br,bc = b.shape
assert ac==br
c = torch.zeros(ar, bc)
for i in range(ar):
for j in range(bc): c[i,j] = (a[i] * b[:,j]).sum()
return c

%timeit -n 20 t3 = matmul(m1,m2)
    488 µs ± 159 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 20 loops each)

Note: Just replacing one of the for loops with PyTorch element-wise arithmetic dramatically improved performance.

• describes how tensors of different ranks are treated during arithmetic operations
• gives specific rules to codify when shapes are compatible when trying to do an element-wise operation, and how the tensor of the smaller shape is expanded to match the tensor of bigger shape

• the scalar is “virtually” expanded to the same shape as the tensor where every element contains the original scalar value

a = tensor([10., 6, -4])
a > 0
    tensor([ True,  True, False])

Note: Broadcasting with a scalar is useful when normalizing a dataset by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation.

m = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]])
(m - 5) / 2.73
    tensor([[-1.4652, -1.0989, -0.7326],
[-0.3663,  0.0000,  0.3663],
[ 0.7326,  1.0989,  1.4652]])

#### Broadcasting a vector to a matrix

• the vector is virtually expanded to the same shape as the tensor, by duplicating the rows/columns as needed
• PyTorch uses the expand_as method to expand the vector to the same size as the higher-rank tensor
• creates a new view on the existing vector tensor without allocating new memory
• It is only possible to broadcast a vector of size n by a matrix of size m by n.

c = tensor([10.,20,30])
m = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]])
m.shape,c.shape
    (torch.Size([3, 3]), torch.Size([3]))

m + c
    tensor([[11., 22., 33.],
[14., 25., 36.],
[17., 28., 39.]])

c.expand_as(m)
    tensor([[10., 20., 30.],
[10., 20., 30.],
[10., 20., 30.]])


help(torch.Tensor.expand_as)
    Help on method_descriptor:

expand_as(...)
expand_as(other) -> Tensor

Expand this tensor to the same size as :attr:other.
self.expand_as(other) is equivalent to self.expand(other.size()).

Please see :meth:~Tensor.expand for more information about expand.

Args:
other (:class:torch.Tensor): The result tensor has the same size
as :attr:other.

help(torch.Tensor.expand)
    Help on method_descriptor:

expand(...)
expand(*sizes) -> Tensor

Returns a new view of the :attr:self tensor with singleton dimensions expanded
to a larger size.

Passing -1 as the size for a dimension means not changing the size of
that dimension.

Tensor can be also expanded to a larger number of dimensions, and the
new ones will be appended at the front. For the new dimensions, the
size cannot be set to -1.

Expanding a tensor does not allocate new memory, but only creates a
new view on the existing tensor where a dimension of size one is
expanded to a larger size by setting the stride to 0. Any dimension
of size 1 can be expanded to an arbitrary value without allocating new
memory.

Args:
*sizes (torch.Size or int...): the desired expanded size

.. warning::

More than one element of an expanded tensor may refer to a single
memory location. As a result, in-place operations (especially ones that
are vectorized) may result in incorrect behavior. If you need to write
to the tensors, please clone them first.

Example::

>>> x = torch.tensor([[1], [2], [3]])
>>> x.size()
torch.Size([3, 1])
>>> x.expand(3, 4)
tensor([[ 1,  1,  1,  1],
[ 2,  2,  2,  2],
[ 3,  3,  3,  3]])
>>> x.expand(-1, 4)   # -1 means not changing the size of that dimension
tensor([[ 1,  1,  1,  1],
[ 2,  2,  2,  2],
[ 3,  3,  3,  3]])

Note: Expanding the vector does not increase the amount of data stored.

t = c.expand_as(m)
t.storage()
     10.0
20.0
30.0
[torch.FloatStorage of size 3]

help(torch.Tensor.storage)
    Help on method_descriptor:

storage(...)
storage() -> torch.Storage

Returns the underlying storage.

Note: PyTorch accomplishes this by giving the new dimension a stride of 0 * When PyTorch looks for the next row by adding the stride, it will stay at the same row

t.stride(), t.shape
    ((0, 1), torch.Size([3, 3]))

c + m
    tensor([[11., 22., 33.],
[14., 25., 36.],
[17., 28., 39.]])

c = tensor([10.,20,30])
m = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6]])
c+m
    tensor([[11., 22., 33.],
[14., 25., 36.]])

# Attempt to broadcast a vector with an incompatible matrix
c = tensor([10.,20])
m = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6]])
c+m

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

RuntimeError                              Traceback (most recent call last)

/tmp/ipykernel_38356/3928136702.py in <module>
1 c = tensor([10.,20])
2 m = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6]])
----> 3 c+m

RuntimeError: The size of tensor a (2) must match the size of tensor b (3) at non-singleton dimension 1

c = tensor([10.,20,30])
m = tensor([[1., 2, 3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]])
# Expand the vector to broadcast across a different dimension
c = c.unsqueeze(1)
m.shape,c.shape, c
    (torch.Size([3, 3]),
torch.Size([3, 1]),
tensor([[10.],
[20.],
[30.]]))

c.expand_as(m)
    tensor([[10., 10., 10.],
[20., 20., 20.],
[30., 30., 30.]])

c+m
    tensor([[11., 12., 13.],
[24., 25., 26.],
[37., 38., 39.]])

t = c.expand_as(m)
t.storage()
     10.0
20.0
30.0
[torch.FloatStorage of size 3]

t.stride(), t.shape
    ((1, 0), torch.Size([3, 3]))

Note: By default, new broadcast dimensions are added at the beginning using c.unsqueeze(0) behind the scenes.

c = tensor([10.,20,30])
c.shape, c.unsqueeze(0).shape,c.unsqueeze(1).shape
    (torch.Size([3]), torch.Size([1, 3]), torch.Size([3, 1]))

Note: The unsqueeze command can be replaced by None indexing.

c.shape, c[None,:].shape,c[:,None].shape
    (torch.Size([3]), torch.Size([1, 3]), torch.Size([3, 1]))

Note: * You can omit training columns when indexing * ... means all preceding dimensions

c[None].shape,c[...,None].shape
    (torch.Size([1, 3]), torch.Size([3, 1]))

c,c.unsqueeze(-1)
    (tensor([10., 20., 30.]),
tensor([[10.],
[20.],
[30.]]))

# Replace the second for loop with broadcasting
def matmul(a,b):
ar,ac = a.shape
br,bc = b.shape
assert ac==br
c = torch.zeros(ar, bc)
for i in range(ar):
#       c[i,j] = (a[i,:]          * b[:,j]).sum() # previous
c[i]   = (a[i  ].unsqueeze(-1) * b).sum(dim=0)
return c

m1.shape, m1.unsqueeze(-1).shape
    (torch.Size([5, 784]), torch.Size([5, 784, 1]))

m1[0].unsqueeze(-1).expand_as(m2).shape
    torch.Size([784, 10])

%timeit -n 20 t4 = matmul(m1,m2)
    414 µs ± 18 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 20 loops each)

Note: Even faster still, though the improvement is not as dramatic.

• when operating on two tensors, PyTorch compares their shapes element-wise
• starts with the trailing dimensions and works with its way backward
• adds 1 when it meets and empty dimension
• two dimensions are compatible when one of the following is true
1. They are equal
2. One of them is 1, in which case that dimension is broadcast to make it the same as the other
• arrays do not need to have the same number of dimensions

### Einstein Summation

• a compact representation for combining products and sums in a general way
• $$ik,kj \rightarrow ij$$
• lefthand side represents the operands dimensions, separated by commas
• righthand side represents the result dimensions
• a practical way of expressing operations involving indexing and sum of products

#### Notaion Rules

1. Repeated indices are implicitly summed over.
2. Each index can appear at most twice in any term.
3. Each term must contain identical nonrepeated indices.

def matmul(a,b): return torch.einsum('ik,kj->ij', a, b)

%timeit -n 20 t5 = matmul(m1,m2)
    The slowest run took 10.35 times longer than the fastest. This could mean that an intermediate result is being cached.
26.9 µs ± 37.3 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 20 loops each)

Note: It is extremely fast even compared to the earlier broadcast implementation. * einsum is often the fastest way to do custom operations in PyTorch, without diving into C++ and CUDA * still not as fast as carefully optimizes CUDA code

x = torch.randn(2, 2)
print(x)
# Transpose
torch.einsum('ij->ji', x)
    tensor([[ 0.7541, -0.8633],
[ 2.2312,  0.0933]])

tensor([[ 0.7541,  2.2312],
[-0.8633,  0.0933]])

x = torch.randn(2, 2)
y = torch.randn(2, 2)
z = torch.randn(2, 2)
print(x)
print(y)
print(z)
# Return a vector of size b where the k-th coordinate is the sum of x[k,i] y[i,j] z[k,j]
torch.einsum('bi,ij,bj->b', x, y, z)
    tensor([[-0.2458, -0.7571],
[ 0.0921,  0.5496]])
tensor([[-1.2792, -0.0648],
[-0.2263, -0.1153]])
tensor([[-0.2433,  0.4558],
[ 0.8155,  0.5406]])

tensor([-0.0711, -0.2349])

# trace
x = torch.randn(2, 2)
x, torch.einsum('ii', x)
    (tensor([[ 1.4828, -0.7057],
[-0.6288,  1.3791]]),
tensor(2.8619))

# diagonal
x = torch.randn(2, 2)
x, torch.einsum('ii->i', x)
    (tensor([[-1.0796,  1.1161],
[ 2.2944,  0.6225]]),
tensor([-1.0796,  0.6225]))

# outer product
x = torch.randn(3)
y = torch.randn(2)
f"x: {x}", f"y: {y}", torch.einsum('i,j->ij', x, y)
    ('x: tensor([ 0.1439, -1.8456, -1.5355])',
'y: tensor([-0.7276, -0.5566])',
tensor([[-0.1047, -0.0801],
[ 1.3429,  1.0273],
[ 1.1172,  0.8547]]))

# batch matrix multiplication
As = torch.randn(3,2,5)
Bs = torch.randn(3,5,4)
torch.einsum('bij,bjk->bik', As, Bs)
    tensor([[[ 1.9657,  0.5904,  2.8094, -2.2607],
[ 0.7610, -2.0402,  0.7331, -2.2257]],

[[-1.5433, -2.9716,  1.3589,  0.1664],
[ 2.7327,  4.4207, -1.1955,  0.5618]],

[[-1.7859, -0.8143, -0.8410, -0.2257],
[-3.4942, -1.9947,  0.7098,  0.5964]]])

# with sublist format and ellipsis
torch.einsum(As, [..., 0, 1], Bs, [..., 1, 2], [..., 0, 2])
    tensor([[[ 1.9657,  0.5904,  2.8094, -2.2607],
[ 0.7610, -2.0402,  0.7331, -2.2257]],

[[-1.5433, -2.9716,  1.3589,  0.1664],
[ 2.7327,  4.4207, -1.1955,  0.5618]],

[[-1.7859, -0.8143, -0.8410, -0.2257],
[-3.4942, -1.9947,  0.7098,  0.5964]]])

# batch permute
A = torch.randn(2, 3, 4, 5)
torch.einsum('...ij->...ji', A).shape
    torch.Size([2, 3, 5, 4])

# equivalent to torch.nn.functional.bilinear
A = torch.randn(3,5,4)
l = torch.randn(2,5)
r = torch.randn(2,4)
torch.einsum('bn,anm,bm->ba', l, A, r)
    tensor([[ 1.1410, -1.7888,  4.7315],
[ 3.8092,  3.0976,  2.2764]])

## The Forward and Backward Passes

### Defining and Initializing a Layer

# Linear layer
def lin(x, w, b): return x @ w + b

# Initialize random input values
x = torch.randn(200, 100)
# Initialize random target values
y = torch.randn(200)

# Initialize layer 1 weights
w1 = torch.randn(100,50)
# Initialize layer 1 biases
b1 = torch.zeros(50)
# Initialize layer 2 weights
w2 = torch.randn(50,1)
# Initialize layer 2 biases
b2 = torch.zeros(1)

# Get a batch of hidden state
l1 = lin(x, w1, b1)
l1.shape
    torch.Size([200, 50])

l1.mean(), l1.std()
    (tensor(-0.0385), tensor(10.0544))

Note: Having with activations with a high standard deviation is a problem since the values can scale to numbers that can’t be represented by a computer by the end of the model.

x = torch.randn(200, 100)
for i in range(50): x = x @ torch.randn(100,100)
x[0:5,0:5]
    tensor([[nan, nan, nan, nan, nan],
[nan, nan, nan, nan, nan],
[nan, nan, nan, nan, nan],
[nan, nan, nan, nan, nan],
[nan, nan, nan, nan, nan]])

Note: Having activations that are too small can cause all the activations at the end of the model to go to zero.

x = torch.randn(200, 100)
for i in range(50): x = x @ (torch.randn(100,100) * 0.01)
x[0:5,0:5]
    tensor([[0., 0., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 0., 0.]])

Note: Need to scale the weight matrices so the standard deviation of the activations stays at 1 * Understanding the difficulty of training deep feedforward neural networks * the right scale for a given layer is $$\frac{1}{\sqrt{n_{in}}}$$, where $$n_{in}"$$ represents the number of inputs.

Note: For a layer with 100 inputs, $$\frac{1}{\sqrt{100}}=0.1$$

x = torch.randn(200, 100)
for i in range(50): x = x @ (torch.randn(100,100) * 0.1)
x[0:5,0:5]
    tensor([[-1.7695,  0.5923,  0.3357, -0.7702, -0.8877],
[ 0.6093, -0.8594, -0.5679,  0.4050,  0.2279],
[ 0.4312,  0.0497,  0.1795,  0.3184, -1.7031],
[-0.7370,  0.0251, -0.8574,  0.6826,  2.0615],
[-0.2335,  0.0042, -0.1503, -0.2087, -0.0405]])

x.std()
    tensor(1.0150)

Note: Even a slight variation from $$0.1$$ will dramatically change the values

# Redefine inputs and targets
x = torch.randn(200, 100)
y = torch.randn(200)

from math import sqrt
# Scale the weights based on the number of inputs to the layers
w1 = torch.randn(100,50) / sqrt(100)
b1 = torch.zeros(50)
w2 = torch.randn(50,1) / sqrt(50)
b2 = torch.zeros(1)

l1 = lin(x, w1, b1)
l1.mean(),l1.std()
    (tensor(-0.0062), tensor(1.0231))

# Define non-linear activation function
def relu(x): return x.clamp_min(0.)

l2 = relu(l1)
l2.mean(),l2.std()
    (tensor(0.3758), tensor(0.6150))

Note: The activation function ruined the mean and standard deviation. * The $$\frac{1}{\sqrt{n_{in}}}$$ weight initialization method used not account for the ReLU function.

x = torch.randn(200, 100)
for i in range(50): x = relu(x @ (torch.randn(100,100) * 0.1))
x[0:5,0:5]
    tensor([[1.2172e-08, 0.0000e+00, 0.0000e+00, 7.1241e-09, 5.9308e-09],
[1.9647e-08, 0.0000e+00, 0.0000e+00, 9.2189e-09, 7.1026e-09],
[1.8266e-08, 0.0000e+00, 0.0000e+00, 1.1150e-08, 7.0774e-09],
[1.8673e-08, 0.0000e+00, 0.0000e+00, 1.0574e-08, 7.3020e-09],
[2.1829e-08, 0.0000e+00, 0.0000e+00, 1.1662e-08, 1.0466e-08]])

#### Delving Deep into Rectifiers: Surpassing Human-Level Performance on ImageNet Classification

• the article that introduced ResNet
• Introduced Kaiming initialization:
• $$\sqrt{\frac{2}{n_{in}}}$$, where $$n_{in}$$ is the number of inputs of our model

x = torch.randn(200, 100)
for i in range(50): x = relu(x @ (torch.randn(100,100) * sqrt(2/100)))
x[0:5,0:5]
tensor([[0.0000, 0.0000, 0.1001, 0.0358, 0.0000],
[0.0000, 0.0000, 0.1612, 0.0164, 0.0000],
[0.0000, 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.0000, 0.0000],
[0.0000, 0.0000, 0.1764, 0.0000, 0.0000],
[0.0000, 0.0000, 0.1331, 0.0000, 0.0000]])

x = torch.randn(200, 100)
y = torch.randn(200)

w1 = torch.randn(100,50) * sqrt(2 / 100)
b1 = torch.zeros(50)
w2 = torch.randn(50,1) * sqrt(2 / 50)
b2 = torch.zeros(1)

l1 = lin(x, w1, b1)
l2 = relu(l1)
l2.mean(), l2.std()
(tensor(0.5720), tensor(0.8259))

def model(x):
l1 = lin(x, w1, b1)
l2 = relu(l1)
l3 = lin(l2, w2, b2)
return l3

out = model(x)
out.shape
torch.Size([200, 1])

# Squeeze the output to get rid of the trailing dimension
def mse(output, targ): return (output.squeeze(-1) - targ).pow(2).mean()
loss = mse(out, y)

### Gradients and the Backward Pass

• the gradients are computed in the backward pass using the chain rule from calculus
• chain rule: $$(g \circ f)'(x) = g'(f(x)) f'(x)$$
• our loss if a big composition of different functions
•   loss = mse(out,y) = mse(lin(l2, w2, b2), y)
• chain rule: $\frac{\text{d} loss}{\text{d} b_{2}} = \frac{\text{d} loss}{\text{d} out} \times \frac{\text{d} out}{\text{d} b_{2}} = \frac{\text{d}}{\text{d} out} mse(out, y) \times \frac{\text{d}}{\text{d} b_{2}} lin(l_{2}, w_{2}, b_{2})$
• To compute all the gradients we need for the update, we need to begin from the output of the model and work our way backward, one layer after the other.
• We can automate this process by having each function we implemented provided its backward step

#### Gradient of the loss function

1. undo the squeeze in the mse function
2. calculate the derivative of $$x^{2}$$: $$2x$$
3. calculate the derivative of the mean: $$\frac{1}{n}$$ where $$n$$ is the number of elements in the input

def mse_grad(inp, targ):
# grad of loss with respect to output of previous layer
inp.g = 2. * (inp.squeeze() - targ).unsqueeze(-1) / inp.shape[0]

#### Gradient of the ReLU activation function

def relu_grad(inp, out):
# grad of relu with respect to input activations
inp.g = (inp>0).float() * out.g

#### Gradient of a linear layer

def lin_grad(inp, out, w, b):
# grad of matmul with respect to input
inp.g = out.g @ w.t()
w.g = inp.t() @ out.g
b.g = out.g.sum(0)

### SymPy

• a library for symbolic computation that is extremely useful when working with calculus
• Symbolic computation deals with the computation of mathematical objects symbolically
• the mathematical objects are represented exactly, not approximately, and mathematical expressions with unevaluated variables are left in symbolic form

from sympy import symbols,diff
sx,sy = symbols('sx sy')
# Calculate the derivative of sx**2
diff(sx**2, sx)

2*sx

#### Define Forward and Backward Pass

def forward_and_backward(inp, targ):
# forward pass:
l1 = inp @ w1 + b1
l2 = relu(l1)
out = l2 @ w2 + b2
# we don't actually need the loss in backward!
loss = mse(out, targ)

# backward pass:
lin_grad(inp, l1, w1, b1)

### Refactoring the Model

• define classes for each function that include their own forward and backward pass functions
class Relu():
def __call__(self, inp):
self.inp = inp
self.out = inp.clamp_min(0.)
return self.out

def backward(self): self.inp.g = (self.inp>0).float() * self.out.g

class Lin():
def __init__(self, w, b): self.w,self.b = w,b

def __call__(self, inp):
self.inp = inp
self.out = inp@self.w + self.b
return self.out

def backward(self):
self.inp.g = self.out.g @ self.w.t()
self.w.g = self.inp.t() @ self.out.g
self.b.g = self.out.g.sum(0)

class Mse():
def __call__(self, inp, targ):
self.inp = inp
self.targ = targ
self.out = (inp.squeeze() - targ).pow(2).mean()
return self.out

def backward(self):
x = (self.inp.squeeze()-self.targ).unsqueeze(-1)
self.inp.g = 2.*x/self.targ.shape[0]

class Model():
def __init__(self, w1, b1, w2, b2):
self.layers = [Lin(w1,b1), Relu(), Lin(w2,b2)]
self.loss = Mse()

def __call__(self, x, targ):
for l in self.layers: x = l(x)
return self.loss(x, targ)

def backward(self):
self.loss.backward()
for l in reversed(self.layers): l.backward()

model = Model(w1, b1, w2, b2)

loss = model(x, y)

model.backward()

### Going to PyTorch

# Define a base class for all functions in the model
class LayerFunction():
def __call__(self, *args):
self.args = args
self.out = self.forward(*args)
return self.out

def forward(self):  raise Exception('not implemented')
def bwd(self):      raise Exception('not implemented')
def backward(self): self.bwd(self.out, *self.args)

class Relu(LayerFunction):
def forward(self, inp): return inp.clamp_min(0.)
def bwd(self, out, inp): inp.g = (inp>0).float() * out.g

class Lin(LayerFunction):
def __init__(self, w, b): self.w,self.b = w,b

def forward(self, inp): return inp@self.w + self.b

def bwd(self, out, inp):
inp.g = out.g @ self.w.t()
self.w.g = inp.t() @ self.out.g
self.b.g = out.g.sum(0)

class Mse(LayerFunction):
def forward (self, inp, targ): return (inp.squeeze() - targ).pow(2).mean()
def bwd(self, out, inp, targ):
inp.g = 2*(inp.squeeze()-targ).unsqueeze(-1) / targ.shape[0]

• In PyTorch, each basic function we need to differentiate is written as a torch.autograd.Function that has a forward and backward method

from torch.autograd import Function
class MyRelu(Function):
# Performs the operation
@staticmethod
def forward(ctx, i):
result = i.clamp_min(0.)
ctx.save_for_backward(i)
return result

# Defines a formula for differentiating the operation with
# backward mode automatic differentiation
@staticmethod
i, = ctx.saved_tensors
return grad_output * (i>0).float()

help(staticmethod)
    Help on class staticmethod in module builtins:

class staticmethod(object)
|  staticmethod(function) -> method
|
|  Convert a function to be a static method.
|
|  A static method does not receive an implicit first argument.
|  To declare a static method, use this idiom:
|
|       class C:
|           @staticmethod
|           def f(arg1, arg2, ...):
|               ...
|
|  It can be called either on the class (e.g. C.f()) or on an instance
|  (e.g. C().f()). Both the class and the instance are ignored, and
|  neither is passed implicitly as the first argument to the method.
|
|  Static methods in Python are similar to those found in Java or C++.
|  For a more advanced concept, see the classmethod builtin.
|
|  Methods defined here:
|
|  __get__(self, instance, owner, /)
|      Return an attribute of instance, which is of type owner.
|
|  __init__(self, /, *args, **kwargs)
|      Initialize self.  See help(type(self)) for accurate signature.
|
|  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Static methods defined here:
|
|  __new__(*args, **kwargs) from builtins.type
|      Create and return a new object.  See help(type) for accurate signature.
|
|  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Data descriptors defined here:
|
|  __dict__
|
|  __func__
|
|  __isabstractmethod__

#### torch.nn.Module

• the base structure for all models in PyTorch

Implementation Steps 1. Make sure the superclass __init__ is called first when you initialize it. 2. Define any parameters of the model as attributes with nn.Parameter. 3. Define a forward function that returns the output of your model.

import torch.nn as nn

class LinearLayer(nn.Module):
def __init__(self, n_in, n_out):
super().__init__()
self.weight = nn.Parameter(torch.randn(n_out, n_in) * sqrt(2/n_in))
self.bias = nn.Parameter(torch.zeros(n_out))

def forward(self, x): return x @ self.weight.t() + self.bias

lin = LinearLayer(10,2)
p1,p2 = lin.parameters()
p1.shape,p2.shape
(torch.Size([2, 10]), torch.Size([2]))

class Model(nn.Module):
def __init__(self, n_in, nh, n_out):
super().__init__()
self.layers = nn.Sequential(
nn.Linear(n_in,nh), nn.ReLU(), nn.Linear(nh,n_out))
self.loss = mse

def forward(self, x, targ): return self.loss(self.layers(x).squeeze(), targ)

Note: fsatai provides its own variant of Module that is identical to nn.Module, but automatically calls super().__init__().

class Model(Module):
def __init__(self, n_in, nh, n_out):
self.layers = nn.Sequential(
nn.Linear(n_in,nh), nn.ReLU(), nn.Linear(nh,n_out))
self.loss = mse

def forward(self, x, targ): return self.loss(self.layers(x).squeeze(), targ)

## Conclusion

• A neural net is a bunch of matrix multiplications with nonlinearities in between
• Vectorize and take advantage of techniques such as element-wise arithmetic and broadcasting when possible
• Two tensors are broadcastable if the dimensions starting from the end and going backward match
• May need to add dimensions of size one to make tensors broadcastable
• Properly initializing a neural net is crucial to get training started
• Use Kaiming initialization when using ReLU
• The backward pass is the chain rule applied multiple times, computing the gradient from the model output and going back, one layer at a time

## References

Previous: Notes on fastai Book Ch. 16