How do I set custom weights for my sequential model?

Question

I want to set the weights of my model to very large numbers from a random normal distribution. Here's my current solution:

weights = tf.keras.initializers.random_normal()
weights = weights(shape=(2, 5)).numpy() * 100

model = tf.keras.Sequential([
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(5, activation="tanh", input_shape=(X_train.shape[1],), kernel_initializer=weights),
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(2, activation="tanh"),
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(2, activation="tanh"),
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(1, activation="sigmoid")
])

model.compile(optimizer=tf.keras.optimizers.SGD(learning_rate=0.01),
              loss="mse",
              metrics=["accuracy"])

history = model.fit(X_train, y_train, epochs=100, validation_data=[X_test, y_test])

This results in the following output:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-145-2307b7a2c402> in <module>()
      3 
      4 model = tf.keras.Sequential([
----> 5                              tf.keras.layers.Dense(5, activation="tanh", input_shape=(X_train.shape[1],), kernel_initializer=weights),
      6                              tf.keras.layers.Dense(2, activation="tanh"),
      7                              tf.keras.layers.Dense(2, activation="tanh"),

1 frames
/usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages/keras/initializers/__init__.py in get(identifier)
    191   else:
    192     raise ValueError('Could not interpret initializer identifier: ' +
--> 193                      str(identifier))

ValueError: Could not interpret initializer identifier: [[ 1.8304478  -1.3845474  -2.438812   -7.1097493   6.8744435 ]
 [ 3.2775316   0.75484884 -0.7150349   1.852715   -8.842371  ]]

Answer 1

Using tf.keras.initializers.random_normal() like that will not work when trying to use it for a Keras layer. Check the docs here for example. Also, you should not hard-code the shape of your weights beforehand. It will be inferred based on the input to your model. You could try something like this:

import tensorflow as tf

def random_normal_init(shape, dtype=None):
    return tf.random.normal(shape) * 100    

model = tf.keras.Sequential([
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(5, activation="tanh", input_shape=(5,), kernel_initializer=random_normal_init),
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(2, activation="tanh"),
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(2, activation="tanh"),
                             tf.keras.layers.Dense(1, activation="sigmoid")
])
samples = 20
print(model(tf.random.normal((samples, 5))))

tf.Tensor(
[[0.2567306 ]
 [0.79331714]
 [0.74326944]
 [0.35187328]
 [0.18808913]
 [0.81191087]
 [0.6069946 ]
 [0.74326944]
 [0.65107304]
 [0.39300534]
 [0.6069946 ]
 [0.81191087]
 [0.61664075]
 [0.35496145]
 [0.81191087]
 [0.2567306 ]
 [0.38335925]
 [0.2567306 ]
 [0.50955486]
 [0.74326944]], shape=(20, 1), dtype=float32)