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We consider a multi-armed bandit problem in a setting where each arm produces a noisy reward realization which depends on an observable random covariate. As opposed to the traditional static multi-armed bandit problem, this setting allows…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2013-05-27 Vianney Perchet , Philippe Rigollet

We study a variant of causal contextual bandits where the context is chosen based on an initial intervention chosen by the learner. At the beginning of each round, the learner selects an initial action, depending on which a stochastic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-04 Rahul Madhavan , Aurghya Maiti , Gaurav Sinha , Siddharth Barman

Algorithms for hyperparameter optimization abound, all of which work well under different and often unverifiable assumptions. Motivated by the general challenge of sequentially choosing which algorithm to use, we study the more specific…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-04-12 Robert Nishihara , David Lopez-Paz , Léon Bottou

Real-world applications of reinforcement learning for recommendation and experimentation faces a practical challenge: the relative reward of different bandit arms can evolve over the lifetime of the learning agent. To deal with these…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-29 Srivas Chennu , Andrew Maher , Jamie Martin , Subash Prabanantham

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

We address the problem of conformal selection, where an agent must select a minimal subset of options to ensure that at least one ``success'' is identified with a pre-specified target probability $\phi$. While traditional online conformal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-15 Sreenivas Gollapudi , Kostas Kollias , Kamesh Munagala , Ali Sinop

We consider the development of adaptive, instance-dependent algorithms for interactive decision making (bandits, reinforcement learning, and beyond) that, rather than only performing well in the worst case, adapt to favorable properties of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-26 Andrew Wagenmaker , Dylan J. Foster

Motivated by the challenges of edge inference, we study a variant of the cascade bandit model in which each arm corresponds to an inference model with an associated accuracy and error probability. We analyse four decision-making…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-30 R Sri Prakash , Nikhil Karamchandani , Sharayu Moharir

We consider the problem of near-optimal arm identification in the fixed confidence setting of the infinitely armed bandit problem when nothing is known about the arm reservoir distribution. We (1) introduce a PAC-like framework within which…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-05-22 Maryam Aziz , Jesse Anderton , Emilie Kaufmann , Javed Aslam

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 consider the contextual bandit problem on general action and context spaces, where the learner's rewards depend on their selected actions and an observable context. This generalizes the standard multi-armed bandit to the case where side…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-01-03 Moise Blanchard , Steve Hanneke , Patrick Jaillet

We study a regret minimization problem with the existence of multiple best/near-optimal arms in the multi-armed bandit setting. We consider the case when the number of arms/actions is comparable or much larger than the time horizon, and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-10-23 Yinglun Zhu , Robert Nowak

Determining what experience to generate to best facilitate learning (i.e. exploration) is one of the distinguishing features and open challenges in reinforcement learning. The advent of distributed agents that interact with parallel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-17 Tom Schaul , Diana Borsa , David Ding , David Szepesvari , Georg Ostrovski , Will Dabney , Simon Osindero

Sequential experiments are often characterized by an exploration-exploitation tradeoff that is captured by the multi-armed bandit (MAB) framework. This framework has been studied and applied, typically when at each time period feedback is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-22 Yonatan Gur , Ahmadreza Momeni

To make informed decisions in natural environments that change over time, humans must update their beliefs as new observations are gathered. Studies exploring human inference as a dynamical process that unfolds in time have focused on…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2022-03-03 Arthur Prat-Carrabin , Robert C. Wilson , Jonathan D. Cohen , Rava Azeredo da Silveira

Motivated by the importance of explainability in modern machine learning, we design bandit algorithms that are efficient and interpretable. A bandit algorithm is interpretable if it explores with the objective of reducing uncertainty in the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-12 Subhojyoti Mukherjee , Ruihao Zhu , Branislav Kveton

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 constrained variant of the \emph{multi-armed bandit} (MAB) problem, in which the learner aims not only at minimizing the total loss incurred during the learning dynamic, but also at controlling the violation of multiple…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-17 Francesco Emanuele Stradi , Kalana Kalupahana , Matteo Castiglioni , Alberto Marchesi , Nicola Gatti

We study the problem of dynamic batch learning in high-dimensional sparse linear contextual bandits, where a decision maker, under a given maximum-number-of-batch constraint and only able to observe rewards at the end of each batch, can…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-07-19 Zhimei Ren , Zhengyuan Zhou

Conformal prediction is a valuable tool for quantifying predictive uncertainty of machine learning models. However, its applicability relies on the assumption of data exchangeability, a condition which is often not met in real-world…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-12-30 Aleksandr Podkopaev , Darren Xu , Kuang-Chih Lee