Related papers: Thompson Sampling for 1-Dimensional Exponential Fa…
The literature on bandit learning and regret analysis has focused on contexts where the goal is to converge on an optimal action in a manner that limits exploration costs. One shortcoming imposed by this orientation is that it does not…
Efficient exploration in bandits is a fundamental online learning problem. We propose a variant of Thompson sampling that learns to explore better as it interacts with bandit instances drawn from an unknown prior. The algorithm meta-learns…
The challenge of identifying the best feasible arm within a fixed budget has attracted considerable interest in recent years. However, a notable gap remains in the literature: the exact exponential rate at which the error probability…
Thompson sampling is a heuristic algorithm for the multi-armed bandit problem which has a long tradition in machine learning. The algorithm has a Bayesian spirit in the sense that it selects arms based on posterior samples of reward…
We derive an algorithm that achieves the optimal (within constants) pseudo-regret in both adversarial and stochastic multi-armed bandits without prior knowledge of the regime and time horizon. The algorithm is based on online mirror descent…
Multi-armed bandit algorithms have been argued for decades as useful for adaptively randomized experiments. In such experiments, an algorithm varies which arms (e.g. alternative interventions to help students learn) are assigned to…
We study $K$-armed bandit problems where the reward distributions of the arms are all supported on the $[0,1]$ interval. It has been a challenge to design regret-efficient randomized exploration algorithms in this setting. Maillard sampling…
We introduce Stacked Thompson Bandits (STB) for efficiently generating plans that are likely to satisfy a given bounded temporal logic requirement. STB uses a simulation for evaluation of plans, and takes a Bayesian approach to using the…
We study Thompson Sampling algorithms for stochastic multi-armed bandits in the batched setting, in which we want to minimize the regret over a sequence of arm pulls using a small number of policy changes (or, batches). We propose two…
Consider a bandit algorithm that recommends actions to self-interested users in a recommendation system. The users are free to choose other actions and need to be incentivized to follow the algorithm's recommendations. While the users…
We study the multi-objective linear contextual bandit problem, where multiple possible conflicting objectives must be optimized simultaneously. We propose \texttt{MOL-TS}, the \textit{first} Thompson Sampling algorithm with Pareto regret…
We study the effects of approximate inference on the performance of Thompson sampling in the $k$-armed bandit problems. Thompson sampling is a successful algorithm for online decision-making but requires posterior inference, which often…
This paper investigates the best arm identification (BAI) problem in stochastic multi-armed bandits in the fixed confidence setting. The general class of the exponential family of bandits is considered. The existing algorithms for the…
We study a type of Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problems in which arms with a Gaussian reward feedback are clustered. Such an arm setting finds applications in many real-world problems, for example, mmWave communications and portfolio…
We consider a finite-horizon multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem in a Bayesian setting, for which we propose an information relaxation sampling framework. With this framework, we define an intuitive family of control policies that include…
In this paper we consider Thompson Sampling (TS) for combinatorial semi-bandits. We demonstrate that, perhaps surprisingly, TS is sub-optimal for this problem in the sense that its regret scales exponentially in the ambient dimension, and…
We address online combinatorial optimization when the player has a prior over the adversary's sequence of losses. In this framework, Russo and Van Roy proposed an information-theoretic analysis of Thompson Sampling based on the information…
We consider Thompson Sampling (TS) for linear combinatorial semi-bandits and subgaussian rewards. We propose the first known TS whose finite-time regret does not scale exponentially with the dimension of the problem. We further show the…
Thompson Sampling (TS) is widely used to address the exploration/exploitation tradeoff in contextual bandits, yet recent theory shows that it does not explore aggressively enough in high-dimensional problems. Feel-Good Thompson Sampling…
Stochastic linear bandits are a natural and simple generalisation of finite-armed bandits with numerous practical applications. Current approaches focus on generalising existing techniques for finite-armed bandits, notably the optimism…