Revision 473d1c3685570e505bed58512afa05fb7d7a8935 authored by Skye Wanderman-Milne on 28 March 2023, 20:42:51 UTC, committed by Skye Wanderman-Milne on 28 March 2023, 22:28:13 UTC
I forgot that the default setting is actually in jaxlib:
https://github.com/openxla/xla/blob/fbe9a80fdb8c429e8a175962459da348cd560a50/xla/python/xla_client.py#L135

To be able to make this change as a jax-only release, I manually set
the env var on Cloud TPU if it isn't already set.
1 parent 4061bbb
Raw File
random.py
# Copyright 2018 The JAX Authors.
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
#     https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

"""Utilities for pseudo-random number generation.

The :mod:`jax.random` package provides a number of routines for deterministic
generation of sequences of pseudorandom numbers.

Basic usage
-----------

>>> seed = 1701
>>> num_steps = 100
>>> key = jax.random.PRNGKey(seed)
>>> for i in range(num_steps):
...   key, subkey = jax.random.split(key)
...   params = compiled_update(subkey, params, next(batches))  # doctest: +SKIP

PRNG Keys
---------

Unlike the *stateful* pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs) that users of NumPy and
SciPy may be accustomed to, JAX random functions all require an explicit PRNG state to
be passed as a first argument.
The random state is described by two unsigned 32-bit integers that we call a **key**,
usually generated by the :py:func:`jax.random.PRNGKey` function::

    >>> from jax import random
    >>> key = random.PRNGKey(0)
    >>> key
    Array([0, 0], dtype=uint32)

This key can then be used in any of JAX's random number generation routines::

    >>> random.uniform(key)
    Array(0.41845703, dtype=float32)

Note that using a key does not modify it, so reusing the same key will lead to the same result::

    >>> random.uniform(key)
    Array(0.41845703, dtype=float32)

If you need a new random number, you can use :meth:`jax.random.split` to generate new subkeys::

    >>> key, subkey = random.split(key)
    >>> random.uniform(subkey)
    Array(0.10536897, dtype=float32)

Advanced
--------

Design and Context
==================

**TLDR**: JAX PRNG = `Threefry counter PRNG <http://www.thesalmons.org/john/random123/papers/random123sc11.pdf>`_
+ a functional array-oriented `splitting model <https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2503784>`_

See `docs/jep/263-prng.md <https://github.com/google/jax/blob/main/docs/jep/263-prng.md>`_
for more details.

To summarize, among other requirements, the JAX PRNG aims to:

1.  ensure reproducibility,
2.  parallelize well, both in terms of vectorization (generating array values)
    and multi-replica, multi-core computation. In particular it should not use
    sequencing constraints between random function calls.

Advanced RNG configuration
==========================

JAX provides several PRNG implementations (controlled by the
`jax_default_prng_impl` flag).

-   **default**
    `A counter-based PRNG built around the Threefry hash function <http://www.thesalmons.org/john/random123/papers/random123sc11.pdf>`_.
-   *experimental* A PRNG that thinly wraps the XLA Random Bit Generator (RBG) algorithm. See
    `TF doc <https://www.tensorflow.org/xla/operation_semantics#rngbitgenerator>`_.

    -   "rbg" uses ThreeFry for splitting, and XLA RBG for data generation.
    -   "unsafe_rbg" exists only for demonstration purposes, using RBG both for
        splitting (using an untested made up algorithm) and generating.

    The random streams generated by these experimental implementations haven't
    been subject to any empirical randomness testing (e.g. Big Crush). The
    random bits generated may change between JAX versions.

The possible reasons not use the default RNG are:

1.  it may be slow to compile (specifically for Google Cloud TPUs)
2.  it's slower to execute on TPUs
3.  it doesn't support efficient automatic sharding / partitioning

Here is a short summary:

.. table::
   :widths: auto

   =================================   ========  ===  ==========  =======  ==============
   Property                            Threefry  rbg  unsafe_rbg  rbg (*)  unsafe_rbg (*)
   =================================   ========  ===  ==========  =======  ==============
   Fastest on TPU                                ✅   ✅          ✅       ✅
   efficiently shardable (w/ pjit)                                ✅       ✅
   identical across shardings           ✅       ✅   ✅
   identical across CPU/GPU/TPU         ✅
   identical across JAX/XLA versions    ✅
   =================================   ========  ===  ==========  =======  ==============

(*): with XLA_FLAGS=xla_tpu_spmd_rng_bit_generator_unsafe=1 set

The difference between "rbg" and "unsafe_rbg" is that while "rbg" uses a less
robust/studied hash function for random value generation (but not for
`jax.random.split` or `jax.random.fold_in`), "unsafe_rbg" additionally uses less
robust hash functions for `jax.random.split` and `jax.random.fold_in`. Therefore
less safe in the sense that the quality of random streams it generates from
different keys is less well understood.
"""

from jax._src.prng import PRNGKeyArray as _PRNGKeyArray
# TODO(frostig): remove this typechecking workaround. Our move away
# from PRNGKeyArray as a pytree led to Python typechecker breakages in
# several downstream annotations (e.g. annotations in jax-dependent
# libraries that are violated by their callers). It may be that the
# pytree registration decorator invalidated the checks. This will be
# easier to handle after we always enable_custom_prng.
import typing
if typing.TYPE_CHECKING:
  PRNGKeyArray = typing.Any
  KeyArray = typing.Any
else:
  # TODO(frostig): replace with KeyArray from jax._src.random once we
  # always enable_custom_prng
  PRNGKeyArray = _PRNGKeyArray
  KeyArray = PRNGKeyArray

# Note: import <name> as <name> is required for names to be exported.
# See PEP 484 & https://github.com/google/jax/issues/7570

from jax._src.random import (
  PRNGKey as PRNGKey,
  ball as ball,
  bernoulli as bernoulli,
  beta as beta,
  categorical as categorical,
  cauchy as cauchy,
  chisquare as chisquare,
  choice as choice,
  default_prng_impl as default_prng_impl,
  dirichlet as dirichlet,
  double_sided_maxwell as double_sided_maxwell,
  exponential as exponential,
  f as f,
  fold_in as fold_in,
  gamma as gamma,
  generalized_normal as generalized_normal,
  gumbel as gumbel,
  key_data as key_data,
  laplace as laplace,
  logistic as logistic,
  loggamma as loggamma,
  maxwell as maxwell,
  multivariate_normal as multivariate_normal,
  normal as normal,
  orthogonal as orthogonal,
  pareto as pareto,
  permutation as permutation,
  poisson as poisson,
  rademacher as rademacher,
  randint as randint,
  random_gamma_p as random_gamma_p,
  rayleigh as rayleigh,
  rbg_key as rbg_key,
  shuffle as shuffle,
  split as split,
  t as t,
  threefry_2x32 as threefry_2x32,
  threefry2x32_key as threefry2x32_key,
  threefry2x32_p as threefry2x32_p,
  truncated_normal as truncated_normal,
  uniform as uniform,
  unsafe_rbg_key as unsafe_rbg_key,
  wald as wald,
  weibull_min as weibull_min,
)
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