Aspects of the present disclosure describe techniques for training a convolutional neural network using an inconsistent stochastic gradient descent (ISGD) algorithm. Training effort for training batches used by the ISGD algorithm are dynamically adjusted according to a determined loss for a given training batch which are classified into two sub states—well-trained or under-trained. The ISGD algorithm provides more iterations for under-trained batches while reducing iterations for well-trained ones.