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Related papers: Introduction to Multi-Armed Bandits

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We consider a novel stochastic multi-armed bandit setting, where playing an arm makes it unavailable for a fixed number of time slots thereafter. This models situations where reusing an arm too often is undesirable (e.g. making the same…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-31 Soumya Basu , Rajat Sen , Sujay Sanghavi , Sanjay Shakkottai

We study the stochastic Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem with random delays in the feedback received by the algorithm. We consider two settings: the reward-dependent delay setting, where realized delays may depend on the stochastic rewards,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-07 Tal Lancewicki , Shahar Segal , Tomer Koren , Yishay Mansour

This paper introduces the framework of multi-armed sampling, which serves as the sampling counterpart to the optimization problem of multi-armed bandits. Our primary motivation is to rigorously examine the exploration-exploitation trade-off…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-14 Mohammad Pedramfar , Siamak Ravanbakhsh

The stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a common model for sequential decision problems. In the standard setup, a decision maker has to choose at every instant between several competing arms, each of them provides a scalar random…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-10-27 Asaf Cassel , Shie Mannor , Assaf Zeevi

Contextual multi-armed bandit problems arise frequently in important industrial applications. Existing solutions model the context either linearly, which enables uncertainty driven (principled) exploration, or non-linearly, by using…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-07-27 Mark Collier , Hector Urdiales Llorens

There is a rising interest in industrial online applications where data becomes available sequentially. Inspired by the recommendation of playlists to users where their preferences can be collected during the listening of the entire…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-02 Giulia Romano , Andrea Agostini , Francesco Trovò , Nicola Gatti , Marcello Restelli

We study the problem of multi-agent multi-armed bandits with adversarial corruption in a heterogeneous setting, where each agent accesses a subset of arms. The adversary can corrupt the reward observations for all agents. Agents share these…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-14 Fatemeh Ghaffari , Xuchuang Wang , Jinhang Zuo , Mohammad Hajiesmaili

We study a strategic variant of the multi-armed bandit problem, which we coin the strategic click-bandit. This model is motivated by applications in online recommendation where the choice of recommended items depends on both the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-28 Thomas Kleine Buening , Aadirupa Saha , Christos Dimitrakakis , Haifeng Xu

The Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit problem is a sequential decision-making problem in which an agent selects a set of arms on each round, observes feedback for each of these arms and aims to maximize a known reward function of the arms it…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-17 Nadav Merlis , Shie Mannor

We study the fundamental limits of learning in contextual bandits, where a learner's rewards depend on their actions and a known context, which extends the canonical multi-armed bandit to the case where side-information is available. We are…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-06-13 Moise Blanchard , Steve Hanneke , Patrick Jaillet

The multi-armed bandit(MAB) problem is a simple yet powerful framework that has been extensively studied in the context of decision-making under uncertainty. In many real-world applications, such as robotic applications, selecting an arm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-21 Tianpeng Zhang , Kasper Johansson , Na Li

In the classical multi-armed bandit problem, instance-dependent algorithms attain improved performance on "easy" problems with a gap between the best and second-best arm. Are similar guarantees possible for contextual bandits? While…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-08 Dylan J. Foster , Alexander Rakhlin , David Simchi-Levi , Yunzong Xu

Pure exploration in multi-armed bandits has emerged as an important framework for modeling decision-making and search under uncertainty. In modern applications, however, one is often faced with a tremendously large number of options. Even…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-22 Parth K. Thaker , Mohit Malu , Nikhil Rao , Gautam Dasarathy

We study the evolution of information in interactive decision making through the lens of a stochastic multi-armed bandit problem. Focusing on a fundamental example where a unique optimal arm outperforms the rest by a fixed margin, we…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-23 Yuzhou Gu , Yanjun Han , Jian Qian

In this paper, we consider a novel variant of the multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem, MAB with cost subsidy, which models many real-life applications where the learning agent has to pay to select an arm and is concerned about optimizing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-16 Deeksha Sinha , Karthik Abinav Sankararama , Abbas Kazerouni , Vashist Avadhanula

We introduce the "inverse bandit" problem of estimating the rewards of a multi-armed bandit instance from observing the learning process of a low-regret demonstrator. Existing approaches to the related problem of inverse reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-02-23 Wenshuo Guo , Kumar Krishna Agrawal , Aditya Grover , Vidya Muthukumar , Ashwin Pananjady

Motivated by problems of learning to rank long item sequences, we introduce a variant of the cascading bandit model that considers flexible length sequences with varying rewards and losses. We formulate two generative models for this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-05 Anirban Santara , Claudio Gentile , Gaurav Aggarwal , Shuai Li

Artificial behavioral agents are often evaluated based on their consistent behaviors and performance to take sequential actions in an environment to maximize some notion of cumulative reward. However, human decision making in real life…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-12-28 Baihan Lin , Guillermo Cecchi , Djallel Bouneffouf , Jenna Reinen , Irina Rish

In the multi-armed bandit framework, there are two formulations that are commonly employed to handle time-varying reward distributions: adversarial bandit and nonstationary bandit. Although their oracles, algorithms, and regret analysis…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-28 Ningyuan Chen , Shuoguang Yang , Hailun Zhang

Reinforcement learning generalizes multi-armed bandit problems with additional difficulties of a longer planning horizon and unknown transition kernel. We explore a black-box reduction from discounted infinite-horizon tabular reinforcement…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-12 Ian A. Kash , Lev Reyzin , Zishun Yu