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We prove an instance independent (poly) logarithmic regret for stochastic contextual bandits with linear payoff. Previously, in \cite{chu2011contextual}, a lower bound of $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{T})$ is shown for the contextual linear bandit…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-05-23 Avishek Ghosh , Abishek Sankararaman

We consider Contextual Bandits with Concave Rewards (CBCR), a multi-objective bandit problem where the desired trade-off between the rewards is defined by a known concave objective function, and the reward vector depends on an observed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-01 Virginie Do , Elvis Dohmatob , Matteo Pirotta , Alessandro Lazaric , Nicolas Usunier

We study contextual bandits with low-rank structure where, in each round, if the (context, arm) pair $(i,j)\in [m]\times [n]$ is selected, the learner observes a noisy sample of the $(i,j)$-th entry of an unknown low-rank reward matrix.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-08 Yassir Jedra , William Réveillard , Stefan Stojanovic , Alexandre Proutiere

A major research direction in contextual bandits is to develop algorithms that are computationally efficient, yet support flexible, general-purpose function approximation. Algorithms based on modeling rewards have shown strong empirical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-14 Dylan J. Foster , Claudio Gentile , Mehryar Mohri , Julian Zimmert

We revisit the finite-armed linear bandit model by Nelson et al. (2022), where contexts and rewards are governed by a finite hidden Markov chain. Nelson et al. (2022) approach this model by a reduction to linear contextual bandits; but to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-10 Zhen Li , Gilles Stoltz

We explore a stochastic contextual linear bandit problem where the agent observes a noisy, corrupted version of the true context through a noise channel with an unknown noise parameter. Our objective is to design an action policy that can…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-26 Sharu Theresa Jose , Shana Moothedath

Standard approaches to decision-making under uncertainty focus on sequential exploration of the space of decisions. However, \textit{simultaneously} proposing a batch of decisions, which leverages available resources for parallel…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-02-07 Jeffrey Chan , Aldo Pacchiano , Nilesh Tripuraneni , Yun S. Song , Peter Bartlett , Michael I. Jordan

Tractable contextual bandit algorithms often rely on the realizability assumption - i.e., that the true expected reward model belongs to a known class, such as linear functions. In this work, we present a tractable bandit algorithm that is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-01 Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy , Vitor Hadad , Susan Athey

We introduce a new model of stochastic bandits with adversarial corruptions which aims to capture settings where most of the input follows a stochastic pattern but some fraction of it can be adversarially changed to trick the algorithm,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-28 Thodoris Lykouris , Vahab Mirrokni , Renato Paes Leme

Motivated by practical needs such as large-scale learning, we study the impact of adaptivity constraints to linear contextual bandits, a central problem in online active learning. We consider two popular limited adaptivity models in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-26 Yufei Ruan , Jiaqi Yang , Yuan Zhou

We study the linear contextual bandit problem where an agent has to select one candidate from a pool and each candidate belongs to a sensitive group. In this setting, candidates' rewards may not be directly comparable between groups, for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-12-21 Riccardo Grazzi , Arya Akhavan , John Isak Texas Falk , Leonardo Cella , Massimiliano Pontil

Typical contextual bandit algorithms assume that the rewards at each round lie in some fixed range $[0, R]$, and their regret scales polynomially with this reward range $R$. However, many practical scenarios naturally involve heavy-tailed…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-05 Chenlu Ye , Yujia Jin , Alekh Agarwal , Tong Zhang

We present an efficient algorithm for linear contextual bandits with adversarial losses and stochastic action sets. Our approach reduces this setting to misspecification-robust adversarial linear bandits with fixed action sets. Without…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-16 Tim van Erven , Jack Mayo , Julia Olkhovskaya , Chen-Yu Wei

The contextual duelling bandit problem models adaptive recommender systems, where the algorithm presents a set of items to the user, and the user's choice reveals their preference. This setup is well suited for implicit choices users make…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-08-27 Suryanarayana Sankagiri , Jalal Etesami , Pouria Fatemi , Matthias Grossglauser

We analyze the $K$-armed bandit problem where the reward for each arm is a noisy realization based on an observed context under mild nonparametric assumptions. We attain tight results for top-arm identification and a sublinear regret of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-01-08 Melody Y. Guan , Heinrich Jiang

We study the $K$-armed contextual dueling bandit problem, a sequential decision making setting in which the learner uses contextual information to make two decisions, but only observes \emph{preference-based feedback} suggesting that one…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-25 Aadirupa Saha , Akshay Krishnamurthy

This paper introduces a novel contextual bandit algorithm for personalized pricing under utility fairness constraints in scenarios with uncertain demand, achieving an optimal regret upper bound. Our approach, which incorporates dynamic…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-11-29 Xi Chen , David Simchi-Levi , Yining Wang

Bandit algorithms have various application in safety-critical systems, where it is important to respect the system constraints that rely on the bandit's unknown parameters at every round. In this paper, we formulate a linear stochastic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-08-19 Sanae Amani , Mahnoosh Alizadeh , Christos Thrampoulidis

We design and implement an adaptive experiment (a ``contextual bandit'') to learn a targeted treatment assignment policy, where the goal is to use a participant's survey responses to determine which charity to expose them to in a donation…

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-10 Ruiyuan Huang , Zengfeng Huang