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We study the linear contextual bandit problem with finite action sets. When the problem dimension is $d$, the time horizon is $T$, and there are $n \leq 2^{d/2}$ candidate actions per time period, we (1) show that the minimax expected…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-08-20 Yingkai Li , Yining Wang , Yuan Zhou

This study investigates the problem of $K$-armed linear contextual bandits, an instance of the multi-armed bandit problem, under an adversarial corruption. At each round, a decision-maker observes an independent and identically distributed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-29 Masahiro Kato , Shinji Ito

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

Contextual bandit with linear reward functions is among one of the most extensively studied models in bandit and online learning research. Recently, there has been increasing interest in designing \emph{locally private} linear contextual…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-04-16 Jiachun Li , David Simchi-Levi , Yining Wang

We present regret minimization algorithms for the contextual multi-armed bandit (CMAB) problem over $K$ actions in the presence of delayed feedback, a scenario where loss observations arrive with delays chosen by an adversary. As a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-13 Orin Levy , Liad Erez , Alon Cohen , Yishay Mansour

In this paper, we propose and study opportunistic contextual bandits - a special case of contextual bandits where the exploration cost varies under different environmental conditions, such as network load or return variation in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-29 Xueying Guo , Xiaoxiao Wang , Xin Liu

We consider the problem of contextual bandits and imitation learning, where the learner lacks direct knowledge of the executed action's reward. Instead, the learner can actively query an expert at each round to compare two actions and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-25 Ayush Sekhari , Karthik Sridharan , Wen Sun , Runzhe Wu

In many applications, e.g. in healthcare and e-commerce, the goal of a contextual bandit may be to learn an optimal treatment assignment policy at the end of the experiment. That is, to minimize simple regret. However, this objective…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-06 Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy , Ruohan Zhan , Susan Athey , Emma Brunskill

Learning from human feedback plays an important role in aligning generative models, such as large language models (LLM). However, the effectiveness of this approach can be influenced by adversaries, who may intentionally provide misleading…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-13 Qiwei Di , Jiafan He , Quanquan Gu

We study linear contextual bandits in the misspecified setting, where the expected reward function can be approximated by a linear function class up to a bounded misspecification level $\zeta>0$. We propose an algorithm based on a novel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-17 Weitong Zhang , Jiafan He , Zhiyuan Fan , Quanquan Gu

In this paper we consider the adversarial contextual bandit problem in metric spaces. The paper "Nearest neighbour with bandit feedback" tackled this problem but when there are many contexts near the decision boundary of the comparator…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-18 Stephen Pasteris , Chris Hicks , Vasilios Mavroudis

Contextual bandit algorithms are sensitive to the estimation method of the outcome model as well as the exploration method used, particularly in the presence of rich heterogeneity or complex outcome models, which can lead to difficult…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-12-18 Maria Dimakopoulou , Zhengyuan Zhou , Susan Athey , Guido Imbens

Conservative mechanism is a desirable property in decision-making problems which balance the tradeoff between the exploration and exploitation. We propose the novel \emph{conservative contextual combinatorial cascading bandit…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-26 Kun Wang , Canzhe Zhao , Shuai Li , Shuo Shao

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

We study the optimal batch-regret tradeoff for batch linear contextual bandits. For any batch number $M$, number of actions $K$, time horizon $T$, and dimension $d$, we provide an algorithm and prove its regret guarantee, which, due to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-18 Zihan Zhang , Xiangyang Ji , Yuan Zhou

We study the problem of stochastic contextual bandits in the agnostic setting, where the goal is to compete with the best policy in a given class without assuming realizability or imposing model restrictions on losses or rewards. In this…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-06 Samuel Girard , Aurelien Bibaut , Arthur Gretton , Nathan Kallus , Houssam Zenati

We study the contextual continuum bandits problem, where the learner sequentially receives a side information vector and has to choose an action in a convex set, minimizing a function associated with the context. The goal is to minimize all…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-28 Arya Akhavan , Karim Lounici , Massimiliano Pontil , Alexandre B. Tsybakov

Contextual bandits are a central framework for sequential decision-making, with applications ranging from recommendation systems to clinical trials. While nonparametric methods can flexibly model complex reward structures, they suffer from…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2026-01-01 Wanteng Ma , T. Tony Cai

Contextual bandit algorithms are at the core of many applications, including recommender systems, clinical trials, and optimal portfolio selection. One of the most popular problems studied in the contextual bandit literature is to maximize…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-24 Siddhant Chaudhary , Abhishek Sinha

We initiate the study of learning in contextual bandits with the help of loss predictors. The main question we address is whether one can improve over the minimax regret $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{T})$ for learning over $T$ rounds, when the total…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-16 Chen-Yu Wei , Haipeng Luo , Alekh Agarwal