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We consider sequential decision making under uncertainty, where the goal is to optimize over a large decision space using noisy comparative feedback. This problem can be formulated as a $K$-armed Dueling Bandits problem where $K$ is the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-07-11 Yanan Sui , Yisong Yue , Joel W. Burdick

The dueling bandit is a learning framework wherein the feedback information in the learning process is restricted to a noisy comparison between a pair of actions. In this research, we address a dueling bandit problem based on a cost…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-12-13 Wataru Kumagai

We present algorithms for reducing the Dueling Bandits problem to the conventional (stochastic) Multi-Armed Bandits problem. The Dueling Bandits problem is an online model of learning with ordinal feedback of the form "A is preferred to B"…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-05-15 Nir Ailon , Thorsten Joachims , Zohar Karnin

We present the first high-probability optimal regret bound for a policy optimization technique applied to the problem of stochastic contextual multi-armed bandit (CMAB) with general offline function approximation. Our algorithm is both…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-17 Orin Levy , Yishay Mansour

We study the problem of \emph{dynamic regret minimization} in $K$-armed Dueling Bandits under non-stationary or time varying preferences. This is an online learning setup where the agent chooses a pair of items at each round and observes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-14 Aadirupa Saha , Shubham Gupta

In this paper we consider the adversarial contextual bandit problem in metric spaces. The paper "Nearest neighbour with bandit feedback" tackled this problem but when there are many contexts near the decision boundary of the comparator…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-18 Stephen Pasteris , Chris Hicks , Vasilios Mavroudis

We consider the stochastic linear (multi-armed) contextual bandit problem with the possibility of hidden simple multi-armed bandit structure in which the rewards are independent of the contextual information. Algorithms that are designed…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-10-07 Niladri S. Chatterji , Vidya Muthukumar , Peter L. Bartlett

Most contextual bandit algorithms minimize regret against the best fixed policy, a questionable benchmark for non-stationary environments that are ubiquitous in applications. In this work, we develop several efficient contextual bandit…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-04-05 Haipeng Luo , Chen-Yu Wei , Alekh Agarwal , John Langford

We study online reinforcement learning in linear Markov decision processes with adversarial losses and bandit feedback, without prior knowledge on transitions or access to simulators. We introduce two algorithms that achieve improved regret…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-19 Haolin Liu , Chen-Yu Wei , Julian Zimmert

We give an oracle-based algorithm for the adversarial contextual bandit problem, where either contexts are drawn i.i.d. or the sequence of contexts is known a priori, but where the losses are picked adversarially. Our algorithm is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-06-02 Vasilis Syrgkanis , Haipeng Luo , Akshay Krishnamurthy , Robert E. Schapire

We consider a contextual bandit problem with $S$ contexts and $K$ actions. In each round $t=1,2,\dots$, the learner observes a random context and chooses an action based on its past experience. The learner then observes a random reward…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-29 Chung-Wei Lee , Qinghua Liu , Yasin Abbasi-Yadkori , Chi Jin , Tor Lattimore , Csaba Szepesvári

We consider the general (stochastic) contextual bandit problem under the realizability assumption, i.e., the expected reward, as a function of contexts and actions, belongs to a general function class $\mathcal{F}$. We design a fast and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-13 David Simchi-Levi , Yunzong Xu

We study a general multi-dueling bandit problem, where an agent compares multiple options simultaneously and aims to minimize the regret due to selecting suboptimal arms. This setting generalizes the traditional two-dueling bandit problem…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-21 Yihan Du , Siwei Wang , Longbo Huang

Preference-based feedback is important for many applications where direct evaluation of a reward function is not feasible. A notable recent example arises in reinforcement learning from human feedback on large language models. For many of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-24 Viraj Mehta , Ojash Neopane , Vikramjeet Das , Sen Lin , Jeff Schneider , Willie Neiswanger

In the stochastic contextual bandit setting, regret-minimizing algorithms have been extensively researched, but their instance-minimizing best-arm identification counterparts remain seldom studied. In this work, we focus on the stochastic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-10-04 Zhaoqi Li , Lillian Ratliff , Houssam Nassif , Kevin Jamieson , Lalit Jain

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…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-06 Samuel Girard , Aurelien Bibaut , Arthur Gretton , Nathan Kallus , Houssam Zenati

Multi-dueling bandits, where a learner selects $m \geq 2$ arms per round and observes only the winner, arise naturally in many applications including ranking and recommendation systems, yet a fundamental question has remained open: can a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-19 S Akash , Pratik Gajane , Jawar Singh

In many applications, e.g. in healthcare and e-commerce, the goal of a contextual bandit may be to learn an optimal treatment assignment policy at the end of the experiment. That is, to minimize simple regret. However, this objective…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-06 Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy , Ruohan Zhan , Susan Athey , Emma Brunskill

We investigate contextual bandits in the presence of side-observations across arms in order to design recommendation algorithms for users connected via social networks. Users in social networks respond to their friends' activity, and hence…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-27 Rahul Singh , Fang Liu , Xin Liu , Ness Shroff

We study a nonparametric contextual bandit problem where the expected reward functions belong to a H\"older class with smoothness parameter $\beta$. We show how this interpolates between two extremes that were previously studied in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-09-14 Yichun Hu , Nathan Kallus , Xiaojie Mao