LNPT: Label-free Network Pruning and Training

Pruning before training enables the deployment of neural networks on smart devices. By retaining weights conducive to generalization, pruned networks can be accommodated on resource-constrained smart devices. It is commonly held that the distance on weight norms between the initialized and the fully-trained networks correlates with generalization performance. However, as we have uncovered, inconsistency between this metric and generalization during training processes, which poses an obstacle to determine the pruned structures on smart devices in advance. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the learning gap, emphasizing its accurate correlation with generalization. Experiments show that the learning gap, in the form of feature maps from the penultimate layer of networks, aligns with variations of generalization performance. We propose a novel learning framework, LNPT, which enables mature networks on the cloud to provide online guidance for network pruning and learning on smart devices with unlabeled data. Our results demonstrate the superiority of this approach over supervised training.