English
Related papers

Related papers: Pure Exploration via Frank-Wolfe Self-Play

200 papers

In pure-exploration problems, information is gathered sequentially to answer a question on the stochastic environment. While best-arm identification for linear bandits has been extensively studied in recent years, few works have been…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-06-10 Marc Jourdan , Rémy Degenne

We analyze undiscounted continuous-time games of strategic experimentation with two-armed bandits. The risky arm generates payoffs according to a L\'{e}vy process with an unknown average payoff per unit of time which nature draws from an…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2020-08-26 Godfrey Keller , Sven Rady

We study the problem of learning in zero-sum matrix games with repeated play and bandit feedback. Specifically, we focus on developing uncoupled algorithms that guarantee, without communication between players, the convergence of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-20 Côme Fiegel , Pierre Ménard , Tadashi Kozuno , Michal Valko , Vianney Perchet

We design new algorithms for the combinatorial pure exploration problem in the multi-arm bandit framework. In this problem, we are given $K$ distributions and a collection of subsets $\mathcal{V} \subset 2^{[K]}$ of these distributions, and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-05-29 Tongyi Cao , Akshay Krishnamurthy

We consider the problem of bandit optimization, inspired by stochastic optimization and online learning problems with bandit feedback. In this problem, the objective is to minimize a global loss function of all the actions, not necessarily…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-09-07 Quentin Berthet , Vianney Perchet

In this paper, we consider the low rank structure of the reward sequence of the pure exploration problems. Firstly, we propose the separated setting in pure exploration problem, where the exploration strategy cannot receive the feedback of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-29 Yaxiong Liu , Atsuyoshi Nakamura , Kohei Hatano , Eiji Takimoto

In this work, we study potential games and Markov potential games under stochastic cost and bandit feedback. We propose a variant of the Frank-Wolfe algorithm with sufficient exploration and recursive gradient estimation, which provably…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2024-04-11 Jing Dong , Baoxiang Wang , Yaoliang Yu

Minesweeper is a popular spatial-based decision-making game that works with incomplete information. As an exemplary NP-complete problem, it is a major area of research employing various artificial intelligence paradigms. The present work…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-05-11 Yash Pratyush Sinha , Pranshu Malviya , Rupaj Kumar Nayak

Despite the recent success of representation learning in sequential decision making, the study of the pure exploration scenario (i.e., identify the best option and minimize the sample complexity) is still limited. In this paper, we study…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-31 Yihan Du , Longbo Huang , Wen Sun

We study the best-arm identification problem in multi-armed bandits with stochastic, potentially private rewards, when the goal is to identify the arm with the highest quantile at a fixed, prescribed level. First, we propose a (non-private)…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-12-06 Kontantinos E. Nikolakakis , Dionysios S. Kalogerias , Or Sheffet , Anand D. Sarwate

We adopt an optimal-control framework for addressing the undiscounted infinite-horizon discrete-time restless $N$-armed bandit problem. Unlike most studies that rely on constructing policies based on the relaxed single-armed Markov Decision…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-19 Chen YAN

Given a set of arms $\mathcal{Z}\subset \mathbb{R}^d$ and an unknown parameter vector $\theta_\ast\in\mathbb{R}^d$, the pure exploration linear bandit problem aims to return $\arg\max_{z\in \mathcal{Z}} z^{\top}\theta_{\ast}$, with high…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-10-26 Zhaoqi Li , Kevin Jamieson , Lalit Jain

Prompt engineering has become central to eliciting the capabilities of large language models (LLMs). At its core lies prompt selection -- efficiently identifying the most effective prompts. However, most prior investigations overlook a key…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-15 Donghao Li , Chengshuai Shi , Weijuan Ou , Cong Shen , Jing Yang

We study an original problem of pure exploration in a strategic bandit model motivated by Monte Carlo Tree Search. It consists in identifying the best action in a game, when the player may sample random outcomes of sequentially chosen pairs…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2016-02-16 Aurélien Garivier , Emilie Kaufmann , Wouter Koolen

The multi-armed bandit problem is a core framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty, but classical algorithms often fail in environments with hidden, time-varying states that confound reward estimation and optimal action…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-19 Jikai Jin , Kenneth Hung , Sanath Kumar Krishnamurthy , Baoyi Shi , Congshan Zhang

In the classic Bayesian restless multi-armed bandit (RMAB) problem, there are $N$ arms, with rewards on all arms evolving at each time as Markov chains with known parameters. A player seeks to activate $K \geq 1$ arms at each time in order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2011-12-25 Wenhan Dai , Yi Gai , Bhaskar Krishnamachari , Qing Zhao

This paper proposes near-optimal algorithms for the pure-exploration linear bandit problem in the fixed confidence and fixed budget settings. Leveraging ideas from the theory of suprema of empirical processes, we provide an algorithm whose…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-23 Julian Katz-Samuels , Lalit Jain , Zohar Karnin , Kevin Jamieson

This paper studies two-player zero-sum stochastic Bayesian games where each player has its own dynamic state that is unknown to the other player. Using typical techniques, we provide the recursive formulas and sufficient statistics in both…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2021-05-05 Nabiha Nasir Orpa , Lichun Li

We study the problem of best-arm identification with fixed confidence in stochastic linear bandits. The objective is to identify the best arm with a given level of certainty while minimizing the sampling budget. We devise a simple algorithm…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-06-30 Yassir Jedra , Alexandre Proutiere

We study the multi-player stochastic multiarmed bandit (MAB) problem in an abruptly changing environment. We consider a collision model in which a player receives reward at an arm if it is the only player to select the arm. We design two…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-12-14 Lai Wei , Vaibhav Srivastava