Bridging the Gap Between Reservoirs and Neural Networks

While reservoir computing is drawing attention, its applications are limited to small tasks. This chapter proposes a solution to this issue by introducing the Hidden-Fold Network, a recursive model with fixed random weights that resembles reservoir computing. The model is constructed based on recent discoveries in neural networks, namely the Strong Lottery Ticket Hypothesis and folding. By pruning an overparameterized model that is randomly initialized, it is possible to find accurate neural networks without the need for weight optimization. It is conjectured that residual networks may contain better subnetwork candidates for inference time when transformed into recurrent architectures, as they may be approximating unrolled shallow recurrent neural networks. This hypothesis is tested in image classification tasks, where subnetworks within the recurrent models are found to be more accurate and parameter-efficient than those within feedforward models, as well as the full models with learned weights.