ABSTRACT
Obtaining a standardized benchmark of computational methods is a major issue in data-science communities. Dedicated frameworks enabling fair benchmarking in a unified environment are yet to be developed. Here, we introduce Codabench, a meta-benchmark platform that is open sourced and community driven for benchmarking algorithms or software agents versus datasets or tasks. A public instance of Codabench is open to everyone free of charge and allows benchmark organizers to fairly compare submissions under the same setting (software, hardware, data, algorithms), with custom protocols and data formats. Codabench has unique features facilitating easy organization of flexible and reproducible benchmarks, such as the possibility of reusing templates of benchmarks and supplying compute resources on demand. Codabench has been used internally and externally on various applications, receiving more than 130 users and 2,500 submissions. As illustrative use cases, we introduce four diverse benchmarks covering graph machine learning, cancer heterogeneity, clinical diagnosis, and reinforcement learning.
ABSTRACT
This paper reports the results and post-challenge analyses of ChaLearn's AutoDL challenge series, which helped sorting out a profusion of AutoML solutions for Deep Learning (DL) that had been introduced in a variety of settings, but lacked fair comparisons. All input data modalities (time series, images, videos, text, tabular) were formatted as tensors and all tasks were multi-label classification problems. Code submissions were executed on hidden tasks, with limited time and computational resources, pushing solutions that get results quickly. In this setting, DL methods dominated, though popular Neural Architecture Search (NAS) was impractical. Solutions relied on fine-tuned pre-trained networks, with architectures matching data modality. Post-challenge tests did not reveal improvements beyond the imposed time limit. While no component is particularly original or novel, a high level modular organization emerged featuring a "meta-learner", "data ingestor", "model selector", "model/learner", and "evaluator". This modularity enabled ablation studies, which revealed the importance of (off-platform) meta-learning, ensembling, and efficient data management. Experiments on heterogeneous module combinations further confirm the (local) optimality of the winning solutions. Our challenge legacy includes an ever-lasting benchmark (http://autodl.chalearn.org), the open-sourced code of the winners, and a free "AutoDL self-service."
