{"paper":{"title":"Optimizer Memory Makes Shuffle Order a First-Order Source of Fine-Tuning Noise","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.NA","math.NA","math.OC","stat.ML"],"primary_cat":"cs.LG","authors_text":"John Sweeney","submitted_at":"2026-06-28T18:44:08Z","abstract_excerpt":"Shuffle order can be a larger source of fine-tuning noise than a memoryless analysis predicts: fixed-clock optimizer memory makes local equal-multiset contrasts first order in the learning rate rather than second order, and the resulting order channel can be large enough for a single seed to flip a close A/B comparison. We isolate this mechanism and derive a fit-free way to size the noise it produces. For a memoryless optimizer, reordering an equal multiset has no first-order endpoint term; the leading local contrast is the $O(\\eta^2)$ gradient bracket. Fixed-clock optimizers such as AdamW are"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2606.29554","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2606.29554/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}