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Locally optimal solution

As explained in Sutskever's List

A local minimum is a point whose objective value is no greater than that of nearby points, without necessarily being the global minimum.

A local minimum is a point whose objective value is no greater than nearby points, even if a lower value exists elsewhere. This differs from the global optimum that convex optimization can guarantee for SVMs. section 2.0

Early doubts about neural-network training treated local minima as inevitable traps for gradient methods. AlexNet challenged that view: high-dimensional loss surfaces differ from simple terrain, and mini-batch gradients can smooth irregularities and support more stable optimization. section 2.5.4

How Sutskever's List covers it

How deep it goes
Defines local minima and explains how high-dimensional loss surfaces and mini-batch gradients complicate the simple-trap picture.
Examples
Contrasts SVM optimization with neural-network training and uses AlexNet’s mini-batch optimization as a counterpoint to the local-minima concern.
What you can do after
Understand why local minima were considered a training risk and why that concern did not make gradient-based neural-network training ineffective.
How it connects
Connects local minima to convex optimization, gradient descent, mini-batch training, and neural networks.

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This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Sutskever's List. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.