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We describe a novel algorithm for noisy global optimisation and continuum-armed bandits, with good convergence properties over any continuous reward function having finitely many polynomial maxima. Over such functions, our algorithm…
Safe reinforcement learning is extremely challenging--not only must the agent explore an unknown environment, it must do so while ensuring no safety constraint violations. We formulate this safe reinforcement learning (RL) problem using the…
Classic no-regret multi-armed bandit algorithms, including the Upper Confidence Bound (UCB), Hedge, and EXP3, are inherently unfair by design. Their unfairness stems from their objective of playing the most rewarding arm as frequently as…
We study a finite-horizon restless multi-armed bandit problem with multiple actions, dubbed R(MA)^2B. The state of each arm evolves according to a controlled Markov decision process (MDP), and the reward of pulling an arm depends on both…
We study the non-stationary stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, where the reward statistics of each arm may change several times during the course of learning. The performance of a learning algorithm is evaluated in terms of their…
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…
This paper addresses the problem of learning to sparsify stochastic linear bandits, where a decision-maker sequentially selects actions from a high-dimensional space subject to a sparsity constraint on the number of nonzero elements in the…
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…
In safety-critical domains, reinforcement learning (RL) agents must often satisfy strict, zero-cost safety constraints while accomplishing tasks. Existing model-free methods frequently either fail to achieve near-zero safety violations or…
In this paper, we consider the problem of black-box optimization with noisy feedback revealed in batches, where the unknown function to optimize has a bounded norm in some Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS). We refer to this as the…
This paper is concerned with the asynchronous form of Q-learning, which applies a stochastic approximation scheme to Markovian data samples. Motivated by the recent advances in offline reinforcement learning, we develop an algorithmic…
We analyze the regret of combinatorial Thompson sampling (CTS) for the combinatorial multi-armed bandit with probabilistically triggered arms under the semi-bandit feedback setting. We assume that the learner has access to an exact…
We consider the sequential Bayesian optimization problem with bandit feedback, adopting a formulation that allows for the reward function to vary with time. We model the reward function using a Gaussian process whose evolution obeys a…
Follow-The-Regularized-Leader (FTRL) is known as an effective and versatile approach in online learning, where appropriate choice of the learning rate is crucial for smaller regret. To this end, we formulate the problem of adjusting FTRL's…
We study sequential decision-making with known rewards and unknown constraints, motivated by situations where the constraints represent expensive-to-evaluate human preferences, such as safe and comfortable driving behavior. We formalize the…
Bandits with Knapsacks (BwK) is a general model for multi-armed bandits under supply/budget constraints. While worst-case regret bounds for BwK are well-understood, we present three results that go beyond the worst-case perspective. First,…
We consider the problem of reinforcement learning under safety requirements, in which an agent is trained to complete a given task, typically formalized as the maximization of a reward signal over time, while concurrently avoiding…
Solving goal-conditioned tasks with sparse rewards using self-supervised learning is promising because of its simplicity and stability over current reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. A recent work, called Goal-Conditioned Supervised…
Stochastic optimization is a widely used approach for optimization under uncertainty, where uncertain input parameters are modeled by random variables. Exact or approximation algorithms have been obtained for several fundamental problems in…
We study a stochastic bandit algorithm motivated by retry-aware objectives that value the best outcome among multiple attempts, such as pass@$k$ and max@$k$. Given a posterior over arm values, ReMax chooses a sampling distribution that…