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Efficient exploration in bandits is a fundamental online learning problem. We propose a variant of Thompson sampling that learns to explore better as it interacts with bandit instances drawn from an unknown prior. The algorithm meta-learns…

We consider a novel formulation of the dynamic pricing and demand learning problem, where the evolution of demand in response to posted prices is governed by a stochastic variant of the popular Bass model with parameters $\alpha, \beta$…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-10 Shipra Agrawal , Steven Yin , Assaf Zeevi

Mode estimation is a classical problem in statistics with a wide range of applications in machine learning. Despite this, there is little understanding in its robustness properties under possibly adversarial data contamination. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-09 Aldo Pacchiano , Heinrich Jiang , Michael I. Jordan

As an extension of the classical multi-armed bandit problem, multi-fidelity multi-armed bandits (MF-MAB) enable individual arms to be evaluated using diverse feedback sources that vary in both cost and accuracy. Prior stochastic models…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Muyun Lu , Haoyang Hong , Huazheng Wang , Ying Lin

A key feature of sequential decision making under uncertainty is a need to balance between exploiting--choosing the best action according to the current knowledge, and exploring--obtaining information about values of other actions. The…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-08-27 Dimitrije Markovic , Hrvoje Stojic , Sarah Schwoebel , Stefan J. Kiebel

We analyze the behavior of approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) when the model generating the simulated data differs from the actual data generating process; i.e., when the data simulator in ABC is misspecified. We demonstrate both…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-12-17 David T. Frazier , Christian P. Robert , Judith Rousseau

This paper is in the field of stochastic Multi-Armed Bandits (MABs), i.e., those sequential selection techniques able to learn online using only the feedback given by the chosen option (a.k.a. arm). We study a particular case of the rested…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-12-08 Alberto Maria Metelli , Francesco Trovò , Matteo Pirola , Marcello Restelli

Stochastic linear bandits are a natural and simple generalisation of finite-armed bandits with numerous practical applications. Current approaches focus on generalising existing techniques for finite-armed bandits, notably the optimism…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-10-17 Tor Lattimore , Csaba Szepesvari

We present a modular approach to reinforcement learning that uses a Bayesian representation of the uncertainty over models. The approach, BOSS (Best of Sampled Set), drives exploration by sampling multiple models from the posterior and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2012-05-14 John Asmuth , Lihong Li , Michael L. Littman , Ali Nouri , David Wingate

The Bayesian paradigm offers principled tools for sequential decision-making under uncertainty, but its reliance on a probabilistic model for all parameters can hinder the incorporation of complex structural constraints. We introduce a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-09 Kaizheng Wang

In a typical stochastic multi-armed bandit problem, the objective is often to maximize the expected sum of rewards over some time horizon $T$. While the choice of a strategy that accomplishes that is optimal with no additional information,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-01 Reda Alami , Mohammed Mahfoud , Mastane Achab

Meta-, multi-task, and federated learning can be all viewed as solving similar tasks, drawn from a distribution that reflects task similarities. We provide a unified view of all these problems, as learning to act in a hierarchical Bayesian…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-08 Joey Hong , Branislav Kveton , Manzil Zaheer , Mohammad Ghavamzadeh

We study reinforcement learning under model misspecification, where we do not have access to the true environment but only to a reasonably close approximation to it. We address this problem by extending the framework of robust MDPs to the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-11-10 Aurko Roy , Huan Xu , Sebastian Pokutta

We consider stochastic multi-armed bandit problems with complex actions over a set of basic arms, where the decision maker plays a complex action rather than a basic arm in each round. The reward of the complex action is some function of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2013-11-05 Aditya Gopalan , Shie Mannor , Yishay Mansour

Contextual bandits are canonical models for sequential decision-making under uncertainty in environments with time-varying components. In this setting, the expected reward of each bandit arm consists of the inner product of an unknown…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-05-27 Hongju Park , Mohamad Kazem Shirani Faradonbeh

Simulation-based inference (SBI) methods such as approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), synthetic likelihood, and neural posterior estimation (NPE) rely on simulating statistics to infer parameters of intractable likelihood models.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-10-06 Daolang Huang , Ayush Bharti , Amauri Souza , Luigi Acerbi , Samuel Kaski

Approximate Bayesian computation is an established and popular method for likelihood-free inference with applications in many disciplines. The effectiveness of the method depends critically on the availability of well performing summary…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-05-23 Prashant Singh , Andreas Hellander

Recent advances in contextual bandit optimization and reinforcement learning have garnered interest in applying these methods to real-world sequential decision making problems. Real-world applications frequently have constraints with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Samuel Daulton , Shaun Singh , Vashist Avadhanula , Drew Dimmery , Eytan Bakshy

Thompson Sampling (TS) and its variants are powerful Multi-Armed Bandit algorithms used to balance exploration and exploitation strategies in active learning. Yet, their probabilistic nature often turns them into a "black box", hindering…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2025-08-22 Parsa Vares , Éloi Durant , Jun Pang , Nicolas Médoc , Mohammad Ghoniem

Recent advances in deep reinforcement learning have made significant strides in performance on applications such as Go and Atari games. However, developing practical methods to balance exploration and exploitation in complex domains remains…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-02-27 Carlos Riquelme , George Tucker , Jasper Snoek