Quality and Computation Time in Optimization Problems

TL;DR

This paper evaluates optimization algorithms based on both quality and computation time, providing recommendations for selecting suitable algorithms depending on the available function evaluations to improve efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces a dual evaluation framework considering quality and time, and offers practical guidelines for choosing optimization algorithms based on evaluation constraints.

Findings

Bayesian optimization is effective with limited function evaluations.

Evolutionary algorithms excel when more evaluations are available.

Recommendations improve optimization efficiency by matching algorithms to evaluation budgets.

Abstract

Optimization problems are crucial in artificial intelligence. Optimization algorithms are generally used to adjust the performance of artificial intelligence models to minimize the error of mapping inputs to outputs. Current evaluation methods on optimization algorithms generally consider the performance in terms of quality. However, not all optimization algorithms for all test cases are evaluated equal from quality, the computation time should be also considered for optimization tasks. In this paper, we investigate the quality and computation time of optimization algorithms in optimization problems, instead of the one-for-all evaluation of quality. We select the well-known optimization algorithms (Bayesian optimization and evolutionary algorithms) and evaluate them on the benchmark test functions in terms of quality and computation time. The results show that BO is suitable to be applied in the optimization tasks that are needed to obtain desired quality in the limited function evaluations, and the EAs are suitable to search the optimal of the tasks that are allowed to find the optimal solution with enough function evaluations. This paper provides the recommendation to select suitable optimization algorithms for optimization problems with different numbers of function evaluations, which contributes to the efficiency that obtains the desired quality with less computation time for optimization problems.