Related papers: Learning the distribution with largest mean: two b…
Many real-world functions are defined over both categorical and category-specific continuous variables and thus cannot be optimized by traditional Bayesian optimization (BO) methods. To optimize such functions, we propose a new method that…
In bandit best-arm identification, an algorithm is tasked with finding the arm with highest mean reward with a specified accuracy as fast as possible. We study multi-fidelity best-arm identification, in which the algorithm can choose to…
In many real-world applications, multiple agents seek to learn how to perform highly related yet slightly different tasks in an online bandit learning protocol. We formulate this problem as the $\epsilon$-multi-player multi-armed bandit…
We consider a stochastic bandit problem with a possibly infinite number of arms. We write $p^*$ for the proportion of optimal arms and $\Delta$ for the minimal mean-gap between optimal and sub-optimal arms. We characterize the optimal…
We study a multi-armed bandit problem where the rewards exhibit regime switching. Specifically, the distributions of the random rewards generated from all arms are modulated by a common underlying state modeled as a finite-state Markov…
Most learning to rank research has assumed that the utility of different documents is independent, which results in learned ranking functions that return redundant results. The few approaches that avoid this have rather unsatisfyingly…
The multi-armed bandit (MAB) model is one of the most classical models to study decision-making in an uncertain environment. In this model, a player chooses one of $K$ possible arms of a bandit machine to play at each time step, where the…
Sequential decision-making under uncertainty often involves multiple agents learning which actions (arms) yield the highest rewards through repeated interaction with a stochastic environment. This setting is commonly modeled by cooperative…
We investigate top-$m$ arm identification, a basic problem in bandit theory, in a multi-agent learning model in which agents collaborate to learn an objective function. We are interested in designing collaborative learning algorithms that…
In machine learning, the notion of multi-armed bandits refers to a class of online learning problems, in which an agent is supposed to simultaneously explore and exploit a given set of choice alternatives in the course of a sequential…
While the objective in traditional multi-armed bandit problems is to find the arm with the highest mean, in many settings, finding an arm that best captures information about other arms is of interest. This objective, however, requires…
We consider the Max $K$-Armed Bandit problem, where a learning agent is faced with several sources (arms) of items (rewards), and interested in finding the best item overall. At each time step the agent chooses an arm, and obtains a random…
The improving multi-armed bandits problem is a formal model for allocating effort under uncertainty, motivated by scenarios such as investing research effort into new technologies, performing clinical trials, and hyperparameter selection…
We consider the problem of best arm identification in the multi-armed bandit model, under fixed confidence. Given a confidence input $\delta$, the goal is to identify the arm with the highest mean reward with a probability of at least 1 --…
We study meta-learning for adversarial multi-armed bandits. We consider the online-within-online setup, in which a player (learner) encounters a sequence of multi-armed bandit episodes. The player's performance is measured as regret against…
The stochastic multi-armed bandit model is a simple abstraction that has proven useful in many different contexts in statistics and machine learning. Whereas the achievable limit in terms of regret minimization is now well known, our aim is…
Learning preferences implicit in the choices humans make is a well studied problem in both economics and computer science. However, most work makes the assumption that humans are acting (noisily) optimally with respect to their preferences.…
Multi-Armed-Bandit frameworks have often been used by researchers to assess educational interventions, however, recent work has shown that it is more beneficial for a student to provide qualitative feedback through preference elicitation…
We consider the Max $K$-Armed Bandit problem, where a learning agent is faced with several stochastic arms, each a source of i.i.d. rewards of unknown distribution. At each time step the agent chooses an arm, and observes the reward of the…
We study the problem of best-arm identification with fixed confidence in stochastic linear bandits. The objective is to identify the best arm with a given level of certainty while minimizing the sampling budget. We devise a simple algorithm…