SGD unbiasedness and variance

Problem

At w=2w=2, three examples have gradients 00, 44, and −2-2. One example is sampled uniformly per SGD step. Compute the full gradient, the stochastic-gradient variance, all next iterates for η=0.3\eta=0.3, and the expected next iterate.

Reveal answer or reference solution

The full gradient is

0+4−23=23.\frac{0+4-2}{3}=\frac{2}{3}.

The variance is

02+42+(−2)23−(23)2=569.\frac{0^2+4^2+(-2)^2}{3}-\left(\frac{2}{3}\right)^2=\frac{56}{9}.

The possible next iterates are 22, 0.80.8, and 2.62.6. Their expectation is

2−0.3(23)=1.8,2-0.3\left(\frac{2}{3}\right)=1.8,

equal to the full-gradient update.

Outcome

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