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Contextual bandits are a rich model for sequential decision making given side information, with important applications, e.g., in recommender systems. We propose novel algorithms for contextual bandits harnessing neural networks to…
We derive an alternative proof for the regret of Thompson sampling (\ts) in the stochastic linear bandit setting. While we obtain a regret bound of order $\widetilde{O}(d^{3/2}\sqrt{T})$ as in previous results, the proof sheds new light on…
We investigate bandit convex optimization (BCO) with delayed feedback, where only the loss value of the action is revealed under an arbitrary delay. Let $n,T,\bar{d}$ denote the dimensionality, time horizon, and average delay, respectively.…
This paper studies the Bayesian regret of a variant of the Thompson-Sampling algorithm for bandit problems. It builds upon the information-theoretic framework of [Russo and Van Roy, 2015] and, more specifically, on the rate-distortion…
We study how representation learning can improve the efficiency of bandit problems. We study the setting where we play $T$ linear bandits with dimension $d$ concurrently, and these $T$ bandit tasks share a common $k (\ll d)$ dimensional…
Regret bounds in online learning compare the player's performance to $L^*$, the optimal performance in hindsight with a fixed strategy. Typically such bounds scale with the square root of the time horizon $T$. The more refined concept of…
Dueling bandits is a prominent framework for decision-making involving preferential feedback, a valuable feature that fits various applications involving human interaction, such as ranking, information retrieval, and recommendation systems.…
We revisit the study of optimal regret rates in bandit combinatorial optimization---a fundamental framework for sequential decision making under uncertainty that abstracts numerous combinatorial prediction problems. We prove that the…
Recent advances in Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) have shown that KL-regularization plays a pivotal role in improving the efficiency of RL fine-tuning for large language models (LLMs). Despite its empirical advantage, the…
We consider a stochastic sparse linear bandit problem where only a sparse subset of context features affects the expected reward function, i.e., the unknown reward parameter has a sparse structure. In the existing Lasso bandit literature,…
We consider the kernelized contextual bandit problem with a large feature space. This problem involves $K$ arms, and the goal of the forecaster is to maximize the cumulative rewards through learning the relationship between the contexts and…
In this paper, we study the contextual multinomial logit (MNL) bandit problem in which a learning agent sequentially selects an assortment based on contextual information, and user feedback follows an MNL choice model. There has been a…
We study contextual bandits in the presence of a stage-wise constraint when the constraint must be satisfied both with high probability and in expectation. We start with the linear case where both the reward function and the stage-wise…
We study bandit model selection in stochastic environments. Our approach relies on a meta-algorithm that selects between candidate base algorithms. We develop a meta-algorithm-base algorithm abstraction that can work with general classes of…
This paper proposes a linear bandit algorithm that is adaptive to environments at two different levels of hierarchy. At the higher level, the proposed algorithm adapts to a variety of types of environments. More precisely, it achieves…
The cross-learning contextual bandit problem with graphical feedback has recently attracted significant attention. In this setting, there is a contextual bandit with a feedback graph over the arms, and pulling an arm reveals the loss for…
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…
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 multinomial logit (MNL) contextual bandit problem for sequential assortment selection. Although most existing research assumes utility functions to be linear in item features, this linearity assumption restricts the modeling of…
We study best-of-both-worlds algorithms for $K$-armed linear contextual bandits. Our algorithms deliver near-optimal regret bounds in both the adversarial and stochastic regimes, without prior knowledge about the environment. In the…