Second-Order Kernel Online Convex Optimization with Adaptive Sketching

Kernel online convex optimization (KOCO) is a framework combining the expressiveness of non-parametric kernel models with the regret guarantees of online learning. First-order KOCO methods such as functional gradient descent require only $\mathcal{O}(t)$ time and space per iteration, and, when the only information on the losses is their convexity, achieve a minimax optimal $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{T})$ regret.

Nonetheless, many common losses in kernel problems, such as squared loss, logistic loss, and squared hinge loss posses stronger curvature that can be exploited. In this case, second-order KOCO methods achieve $\mathcal{O}(\log(Det(\boldsymbol{K})))$ regret, which we show scales as $\mathcal{O}(d_{eff}\log T)$, where $d_{eff}$ is the effective dimension of the problem and is usually much smaller than $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{T})$.

The main drawback of second-order methods is their much higher $\mathcal{O}(t^2)$ space and time complexity. In this paper, we introduce kernel online Newton step (KONS), a new second-order KOCO method that also achieves $\mathcal{O}(d_{eff}\log T)$ regret.

To address the computational complexity of second-order methods, we introduce a new matrix sketching algorithm for the kernel matrix $\boldsymbol{K}_t$, and show that for a chosen parameter $γ\leq 1$ our Sketched-KONS reduces the space and time complexity by a factor of $γ^2$ to $\mathcal{O}(t^2γ^2)$ space and time per iteration, while incurring only $1/γ$ times more regret.