Related papers: Asymptotically Optimal Regret for Black-Box Predic…
The classical theory of reinforcement learning (RL) has focused on tabular and linear representations of value functions. Further progress hinges on combining RL with modern function approximators such as kernel functions and deep neural…
We study time-inhomogeneous episodic reinforcement learning (RL) under general function approximation and sparse rewards. We design a new algorithm, Variance-weighted Optimistic $Q$-Learning (VO$Q$L), based on $Q$-learning and bound its…
Policy learning in modern operations environments faces a fundamental tension between limited operational data and the large, often continuous, state and action spaces over which good decisions must be identified and deployed. We study…
This paper studies model-based reinforcement learning (RL) for regret minimization. We focus on finite-horizon episodic RL where the transition model $P$ belongs to a known family of models $\mathcal{P}$, a special case of which is when…
We propose minimum regret search (MRS), a novel acquisition function for Bayesian optimization. MRS bears similarities with information-theoretic approaches such as entropy search (ES). However, while ES aims in each query at maximizing the…
We consider sequential decision making in a setting where regret is measured with respect to a set of stateful reference policies, and feedback is limited to observing the rewards of the actions performed (the so called "bandit" setting).…
Online strategic classification studies settings in which agents strategically modify their features to obtain favorable predictions. For example, given a classifier that determines loan approval based on credit scores, applicants may open…
The most data-efficient algorithms for reinforcement learning (RL) in robotics are based on uncertain dynamical models: after each episode, they first learn a dynamical model of the robot, then they use an optimization algorithm to find a…
We consider the problem of interactive decision making, encompassing structured bandits and reinforcement learning with general function approximation. Recently, Foster et al. (2021) introduced the Decision-Estimation Coefficient, a measure…
The menu-dependent nature of regret-minimization creates subtleties when it is applied to dynamic decision problems. Firstly, it is not clear whether \emph{forgone opportunities} should be included in the \emph{menu}, with respect to which…
Empirical researchers and decision-makers spanning various domains frequently seek profound insights into the long-term impacts of interventions. While the significance of long-term outcomes is undeniable, an overemphasis on them may…
We study the problem of making predictions of an adversarially chosen high-dimensional state that are unbiased subject to an arbitrary collection of conditioning events, with the goal of tailoring these events to downstream decision makers.…
We study the contextual multi-armed bandit problem with a finite context space (a.k.a. subpopulations), where the learner recommends a best action for each context and is evaluated by context-weighted simple regret. Our guarantees are…
Discounted-sum games provide a formal model for the study of reinforcement learning, where the agent is enticed to get rewards early since later rewards are discounted. When the agent interacts with the environment, she may regret her…
Many machine learning systems make constrained decisions by optimizing factorized objectives, but the context-specific objective is often treated as fixed. We study contextual decision-weight learning: from logged decisions and proxy…
Symbolic Regression aims to automatically identify compact and interpretable mathematical expressions that model the functional relationship between input and output variables. Most existing search-based symbolic regression methods…
Motivated by applications in service systems, we consider queueing systems where each customer must be handled by a server with the right skill set. We focus on optimizing the routing of customers to servers in order to maximize the total…
We consider online convex optimization with a zero-order oracle feedback. In particular, the decision maker does not know the explicit representation of the time-varying cost functions, or their gradients. At each time step, she observes…
Motivated by online retail, we consider the problem of selling one item (e.g., an ad slot) to two non-excludable buyers (say, a merchant and a brand). This problem captures, for example, situations where a merchant and a brand cooperatively…
We introduce the ``soft Deep MaxPain'' (softDMP) algorithm, which integrates the optimization of long-term policy entropy into reward-punishment reinforcement learning objectives. Our motivation is to facilitate a smoother variation of…