Mini-machine learning

Abstract

Techniques are described for generating and applying mini-machine learning variants of machine learning algorithms to save computational resources in tuning and selection of machine learning algorithms. In an embodiment, at least one of the hyper-parameter values for a reference variant is modified to a new hyper-parameter value thereby generating a new variant of machine learning algorithm from the reference variant of machine learning algorithm. A performance score is determined for the new variant of machine learning algorithm using a training dataset, the performance score representing the accuracy of the new machine learning model for the training dataset. By performing training of the new variant of machine learning algorithm with the training data set, a cost metric of the new variant of machine learning algorithm is measured by measuring usage the used computing resources for the training. Based on the cost metric of the new variant of machine learning algorithm and comparing the performance score for the new and reference variants, the system determines whether the modified reference machine algorithm is the mini-machine learning algorithm that is computationally less costly than the reference variant of machine learning algorithm but closely tracks the accuracy thereof.