Related papers: Guaranteed satisficing and finite regret: Analysis…
Many works have developed no-regret algorithms for contextual bandits with function approximation, where the mean reward function over context-action pairs belongs to a function class. Although there are many approaches to this problem, one…
We study a regret minimization problem with the existence of multiple best/near-optimal arms in the multi-armed bandit setting. We consider the case when the number of arms/actions is comparable or much larger than the time horizon, and…
This paper presents a class of Dynamic Multi-Armed Bandit problems where the reward can be modeled as the noisy output of a time varying linear stochastic dynamic system that satisfies some boundedness constraints. The class allows many…
Constrained Reinforcement Learning has been employed to enforce safety constraints on policy through the use of expected cost constraints. The key challenge is in handling expected cost accumulated using the policy and not just in a single…
We consider a multi-armed bandit problem where payoffs are a linear function of an observed stochastic contextual variable. In the scenario where there exists a gap between optimal and suboptimal rewards, several algorithms have been…
Reinforcement learning algorithms describe how an agent can learn an optimal action policy in a sequential decision process, through repeated experience. In a given environment, the agent policy provides him some running and terminal…
Safe reinforcement learning is a promising path toward applying reinforcement learning algorithms to real-world problems, where suboptimal behaviors may lead to actual negative consequences. In this work, we focus on the setting where…
We consider the problem of sequentially maximizing an unknown function $f$ over a set of actions of the form $(s,\mathbf{x})$, where the selected actions must satisfy a safety constraint with respect to an unknown safety function $g$. We…
Multi-armed bandit problems are the predominant theoretical model of exploration-exploitation tradeoffs in learning, and they have countless applications ranging from medical trials, to communication networks, to Web search and advertising.…
We study the problem of stochastic contextual bandits in the agnostic setting, where the goal is to compete with the best policy in a given class without assuming realizability or imposing model restrictions on losses or rewards. In this…
In this paper, we consider algorithm-independent lower bounds for the problem of black-box optimization of functions having a bounded norm is some Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS), which can be viewed as a non-Bayesian Gaussian…
The optimized certainty equivalent (OCE) is a family of risk measures that cover important examples such as entropic risk, conditional value-at-risk and mean-variance models. In this paper, we propose a new episodic risk-sensitive…
We study the $K$-armed dueling bandit problem, a variation of the standard stochastic bandit problem where the feedback is limited to relative comparisons of a pair of arms. We introduce a tight asymptotic regret lower bound that is based…
We study regret minimization in a stochastic multi-armed bandit setting and establish a fundamental trade-off between the regret suffered under an algorithm, and its statistical robustness. Considering broad classes of underlying arms'…
We consider a multi-armed bandit problem motivated by situations where only the extreme values, as opposed to expected values in the classical bandit setting, are of interest. We propose distribution free algorithms using robust statistics…
In this paper, we study the problem of Gaussian process (GP) bandits under relaxed optimization criteria stating that any function value above a certain threshold is "good enough". On the theoretical side, we study various {\em lenient…
Reinforcement learning (RL) agents with pre-specified reward functions cannot provide guaranteed safety across variety of circumstances that an uncertain system might encounter. To guarantee performance while assuring satisfaction of safety…
We study the tail behavior of regret in stochastic multi-armed bandits for algorithms that are asymptotically optimal in expectation. While minimizing expected regret is the classical objective, recent work shows that even such algorithms…
This paper studies model-based reinforcement learning (RL) for regret minimization. We focus on finite-horizon episodic RL where the transition model $P$ belongs to a known family of models $\mathcal{P}$, a special case of which is when…
A crucial problem in reinforcement learning is learning the optimal policy. We study this in tabular infinite-horizon discounted Markov decision processes under the online setting. The existing algorithms either fail to achieve regret…