Learning Symbolic Model-Agnostic Loss Functions via Meta-Learning
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Abstract (arXiv)
In this paper, we develop upon the emerging topic of loss function learning, which aims to learn loss functions that significantly improve the performance of the models trained under them. Specifically, we propose a new meta-learning framework for learning model-agnostic loss functions via a hybrid neuro-symbolic search approach. The framework first uses evolution-based methods to search the space of primitive mathematical operations to find a set of symbolic loss functions. Second, the set of learned loss functions are subsequently parameterized and optimized via an end-to-end gradient-based training procedure. The versatility of the proposed framework is empirically validated on a diverse set of supervised learning tasks. Results show that the meta-learned loss functions discovered by the newly proposed method outperform both the cross-entropy loss and state-of-the-art loss function learning methods on a diverse range of neural network architectures and datasets.
Key facts. Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 52 of its 101 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Sep 2022.
Builds on
52 of 101 references.
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Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 6; 2025: 2.
9 papers.
- 2025Neuro-Symbolic AI in 2024: A Systematic Reviewcited by 36
- 2023Meta-Learning Adaptive Loss Functionscited by 4
- 2024Neural Loss Function Evolution for Large-Scale Image Classifier Convolutional Neural Networkscited by 2
- 2024STAA-Net: A Sparse and Transferable Adversarial Attack for Speech Emotion Recognitioncited by 1
- 2024Sharpness-Aware Minimization for Evolutionary Feature Construction in Regressioncited by 1
- 2024Meta-Learning Neural Procedural Biasescited by 1
- 2024A Consistent Lebesgue Measure for Multi-label Learningcited by 0
- 2024Evolving Loss Functions for Specific Image Augmentation Techniquescited by 0
- 2025Meta-Sparsity: Learning Optimal Sparse Structures in Multi-task Networks through Meta-learningcited by 0
- 2025Meta-Sparsity: Learning Optimal Sparse Structures in Multi-task Networks through Meta-learning21 Jan 2025
- 2025Neuro-Symbolic AI in 2024: A Systematic Review9 Jan 2025
- 2024Meta-Learning Neural Procedural Biases12 Jun 2024
- 2024Sharpness-Aware Minimization for Evolutionary Feature Construction in Regression11 May 2024
- 2024Evolving Loss Functions for Specific Image Augmentation Techniques9 Apr 2024
- 2024STAA-Net: A Sparse and Transferable Adversarial Attack for Speech Emotion Recognition2 Feb 2024
- 2024A Consistent Lebesgue Measure for Multi-label Learning1 Feb 2024
- 2024Neural Loss Function Evolution for Large-Scale Image Classifier Convolutional Neural Networks30 Jan 2024
- 2023Meta-Learning Adaptive Loss Functions30 Jan 2023