Taha EL BAKKALI EL KADI

2 accepted papers

2026

Noisy Pairwise-Comparison Random Search for Smooth Nonconvex Optimization

Taha EL BAKKALI EL KADI, Rayane Bouftini, Richard Zhang, Omar Saadi

ICML 2026poster

We consider minimizing high-dimensional smooth nonconvex objectives using only noisy pairwise comparisons. Unlike classical zeroth-order methods limited by the ambient dimension $d$, we propose Noisy-Comparison Random Search (NCRS), a direct-search method that exploits random line search to adapt to…

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2025

On the Almost Sure Convergence of the Stochastic Three Points Algorithm

Taha EL BAKKALI EL KADI, Omar Saadi

ICLR 2025poster

The stochastic three points (STP) algorithm is a derivative-free optimization technique designed for unconstrained optimization problems in $\mathbb{R}^d$. In this paper, we analyze this algorithm for three classes of functions: smooth functions that may lack convexity, smooth convex functions, and…

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