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This paper focuses on extending the success of large language models (LLMs) to sequential decision making. Existing efforts either (i) re-train or finetune LLMs for decision making, or (ii) design prompts for pretrained LLMs. The former…

We introduce a novel framework for analyzing sorting algorithms in pairwise ranking prompting (PRP), re-centering the cost model around LLM inferences rather than traditional pairwise comparisons. While classical metrics based on comparison…

The Centralized Training with Decentralized Execution (CTDE) paradigm is widely used in cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning. However, conventional methods based on CTDE can suffer from value underestimation and converge to…

Despite strong advisory against it, large generative models (LMs) are already being used for decision making tasks that were previously done by predictive models or humans. We put popular LMs to the test in a high-stakes decision making…

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities across a range of text-generation tasks. However, LLMs still struggle with problems requiring multi-step decision-making and environmental feedback, such as online…

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used as rerankers in information retrieval, yet their ranking behavior can be steered by small, natural-sounding prompts. To expose this vulnerability, we present Rank Anything First (RAF), a…

Balancing exploration and exploitation remains a key challenge in reinforcement learning (RL). State-of-the-art RL algorithms suffer from high sample complexity, particularly in the sparse reward case, where they can do no better than to…

The statistical framework of Generalized Linear Models (GLM) can be applied to sequential problems involving categorical or ordinal rewards associated, for instance, with clicks, likes or ratings. In the example of binary rewards, logistic…

Mathematical optimization is a powerful tool for structured decision-making across domains such as resource allocation and planning. Formulating optimization models faithful to reality, though, remains a significant bottleneck as it…

Pathology reports serve as the definitive record for breast cancer staging, yet their unstructured format impedes large-scale data curation. While Large Language Models (LLMs) offer semantic reasoning, their deployment is often limited by…

While systems designed for solving planning tasks vastly outperform Large Language Models (LLMs) in this domain, they usually discard the rich semantic information embedded within task descriptions. In contrast, LLMs possess parametrised…

Aligning large language models (LLMs) depends on high-quality datasets of human preference labels, which are costly to collect. Although active learning has been studied to improve sample efficiency relative to passive collection, many…

The Column Subset Selection Problem provides a natural framework for unsupervised feature selection. Despite being a hard combinatorial optimization problem, there exist efficient algorithms that provide good approximations. The drawback of…

Most practical scheduling applications involve some uncertainty about the arriving times and lengths of the jobs. Stochastic online scheduling is a well-established model capturing this. Here the arrivals occur online, while the processing…

In the Submodular Welfare Maximization (SWM) problem, the input consists of a set of $n$ items, each of which must be allocated to one of $m$ agents. Each agent $\ell$ has a valuation function $v_\ell$, where $v_\ell(S)$ denotes the welfare…

Designing reliable decision strategies for autonomous urban driving is challenging. Reinforcement learning (RL) has been used to automatically derive suitable behavior in uncertain environments, but it does not provide any guarantee on the…

Problem definition: Although large language models (LLMs) are increasingly integrated into business decision making, their potential to replicate and even amplify human cognitive biases cautions a significant, yet not well-understood, risk.…

Automatic machine learning (AutoML) is a key enabler of the mass deployment of the next generation of machine learning systems. A key desideratum for future ML systems is the automatic selection of models and hyperparameters. We present a…

Large language models (LLMs) are powerful tools that have found applications beyond human-machine interfaces and chatbots. In particular, their ability to generate reasoning traces motivated their use in many prediction tasks like math…

Researchers and practitioners operating on a limited budget face the cost-performance trade-off dilemma. The challenging decision often centers on whether to use a large LLM with better performance or a smaller one with reduced costs. This…