A Surgery of the Neural Architecture Evaluators
Authors: Xuefei Ning, Wenshuo Li, Zixuan Zhou, Tianchen Zhao, Shuang Liang, Yin Zheng, Huazhong Yang, Yu Wang
Keywords: Neural architecture search (NAS), Parameter Sharing NAS, Predictor-based NAS
Abstract:  Neural architecture search (NAS) has recently received extensive attention due to its effectiveness in automatically designing effective neural architectures. A major challenge in NAS is to conduct a fast and accurate evaluation of neural architectures. Commonly used fast architecture evaluators include parameter-sharing ones and predictor-based ones. Despite their high evaluation efficiency, the evaluation correlation (especially of the well-performing architectures) is still questionable. In this paper, we conduct an extensive assessment of both the parameter-sharing and predictor-based evaluators on the NAS-Bench-201 search space, and break up how and why different configurations and strategies influence the fitness of the evaluators. Specifically, we carefully develop a set of NAS-oriented criteria to understand the behavior of fast architecture evaluators in different training stages. And based on the findings of our experiments, we give pieces of knowledge and suggestions to guide NAS application and motivate further research.