Question 27 - MLS-C01 discussion

The solution C will improve the computational efficiency of the models because it uses Amazon SageMaker Debugger and pruning, which are techniques that can reduce the size and complexity of the convolutional neural network (CNN) models. The solution C involves the following steps:

Use Amazon SageMaker Debugger to gain visibility into the training weights, gradients, biases, and activation outputs. Amazon SageMaker Debugger is a service that can capture and analyze the tensors that are emitted during the training process of machine learning models. Amazon SageMaker Debugger can provide insights into the model performance, quality, and convergence.Amazon SageMaker Debugger can also help to identify and diagnose issues such as overfitting, underfitting, vanishing gradients, and exploding gradients1.

Compute the filter ranks based on the training information. Filter ranking is a technique that can measure the importance of each filter in a convolutional layer based on some criterion, such as the average percentage of zero activations or the L1-norm of the filter weights.Filter ranking can help to identify the filters that have little or no contribution to the model output, and thus can be removed without affecting the model accuracy2.

Apply pruning to remove the low-ranking filters. Pruning is a technique that can reduce the size and complexity of a neural network by removing the redundant or irrelevant parts of the network, such as neurons, connections, or filters.Pruning can help to improve the computational efficiency, memory usage, and inference speed of the model, as well as to prevent overfitting and improve generalization3.

Set the new weights based on the pruned set of filters. After pruning, the model will have a smaller and simpler architecture, with fewer filters in each convolutional layer.The new weights of the model can be set based on the pruned set of filters, either by initializing them randomly or by fine-tuning them from the original weights4.

Run a new training job with the pruned model. The pruned model can be trained again with the same or a different dataset, using the same or a different framework or algorithm. The new training job can use the same or a different configuration of Amazon SageMaker, such as the instance type, the hyperparameters, or the data ingestion mode.The new training job can also use Amazon SageMaker Debugger to monitor and analyze the training process and the model quality5.

The other options are not suitable because:

Option A: Using Amazon CloudWatch metrics to gain visibility into the SageMaker training weights, gradients, biases, and activation outputs will not be as effective as using Amazon SageMaker Debugger. Amazon CloudWatch is a service that can monitor and observe the operational health and performance of AWS resources and applications. Amazon CloudWatch can provide metrics, alarms, dashboards, and logs for various AWS services, including Amazon SageMaker. However, Amazon CloudWatch does not provide the same level of granularity and detail as Amazon SageMaker Debugger for the tensors that are emitted during the training process of machine learning models.Amazon CloudWatch metrics are mainly focused on the resource utilization and the training progress, not on the model performance, quality, and convergence6.

Option B: Using Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth to build and run data labeling workflows and collecting a larger labeled dataset with the labeling workflows will not improve the computational efficiency of the models. Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth is a service that can create high-quality training datasets for machine learning by using human labelers. A larger labeled dataset can help to improve the model accuracy and generalization, but it will not reduce the memory, battery, and hardware consumption of the model.Moreover, a larger labeled dataset may increase the training time and cost of the model7.

Option D: Using Amazon SageMaker Model Monitor to gain visibility into the ModelLatency metric and OverheadLatency metric of the model after the company deploys the model and increasing the model learning rate will not improve the computational efficiency of the models. Amazon SageMaker Model Monitor is a service that can monitor and analyze the quality and performance of machine learning models that are deployed on Amazon SageMaker endpoints. The ModelLatency metric and the OverheadLatency metric can measure the inference latency of the model and the endpoint, respectively. However, these metrics do not provide any information about the training weights, gradients, biases, and activation outputs of the model, which are needed for pruning. Moreover, increasing the model learning rate will not reduce the size and complexity of the model, but it may affect the model convergence and accuracy.

References:

1: Amazon SageMaker Debugger

2: Pruning Convolutional Neural Networks for Resource Efficient Inference

3: Pruning Neural Networks: A Survey

4: Learning both Weights and Connections for Efficient Neural Networks

5: Amazon SageMaker Training Jobs

6: Amazon CloudWatch Metrics for Amazon SageMaker

7: Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth

: Amazon SageMaker Model Monitor