243 research outputs found
Calibrated Fairness in Bandits
We study fairness within the stochastic, \emph{multi-armed bandit} (MAB)
decision making framework. We adapt the fairness framework of "treating similar
individuals similarly" to this setting. Here, an `individual' corresponds to an
arm and two arms are `similar' if they have a similar quality distribution.
First, we adopt a {\em smoothness constraint} that if two arms have a similar
quality distribution then the probability of selecting each arm should be
similar. In addition, we define the {\em fairness regret}, which corresponds to
the degree to which an algorithm is not calibrated, where perfect calibration
requires that the probability of selecting an arm is equal to the probability
with which the arm has the best quality realization. We show that a variation
on Thompson sampling satisfies smooth fairness for total variation distance,
and give an bound on fairness regret. This complements
prior work, which protects an on-average better arm from being less favored. We
also explain how to extend our algorithm to the dueling bandit setting.Comment: To be presented at the FAT-ML'17 worksho
Factored Bandits
We introduce the factored bandits model, which is a framework for learning
with limited (bandit) feedback, where actions can be decomposed into a
Cartesian product of atomic actions. Factored bandits incorporate rank-1
bandits as a special case, but significantly relax the assumptions on the form
of the reward function. We provide an anytime algorithm for stochastic factored
bandits and up to constants matching upper and lower regret bounds for the
problem. Furthermore, we show that with a slight modification the proposed
algorithm can be applied to utility based dueling bandits. We obtain an
improvement in the additive terms of the regret bound compared to state of the
art algorithms (the additive terms are dominating up to time horizons which are
exponential in the number of arms)
Tsallis-INF: An Optimal Algorithm for Stochastic and Adversarial Bandits
We derive an algorithm that achieves the optimal (within constants)
pseudo-regret in both adversarial and stochastic multi-armed bandits without
prior knowledge of the regime and time horizon. The algorithm is based on
online mirror descent (OMD) with Tsallis entropy regularization with power
and reduced-variance loss estimators. More generally, we define an
adversarial regime with a self-bounding constraint, which includes stochastic
regime, stochastically constrained adversarial regime (Wei and Luo), and
stochastic regime with adversarial corruptions (Lykouris et al.) as special
cases, and show that the algorithm achieves logarithmic regret guarantee in
this regime and all of its special cases simultaneously with the adversarial
regret guarantee.} The algorithm also achieves adversarial and stochastic
optimality in the utility-based dueling bandit setting. We provide empirical
evaluation of the algorithm demonstrating that it significantly outperforms
UCB1 and EXP3 in stochastic environments. We also provide examples of
adversarial environments, where UCB1 and Thompson Sampling exhibit almost
linear regret, whereas our algorithm suffers only logarithmic regret. To the
best of our knowledge, this is the first example demonstrating vulnerability of
Thompson Sampling in adversarial environments. Last, but not least, we present
a general stochastic analysis and a general adversarial analysis of OMD
algorithms with Tsallis entropy regularization for and explain
the reason why works best
- …