Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader with Fréchet-type Tail Distributions: Optimality in Adversarial Bandits and Best-of-Both-Worlds

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lee, Jongyeong, Honda, Junya, Ito, Shinji, Oh, Min-hwan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910358365536256
author Lee, Jongyeong
Honda, Junya
Ito, Shinji
Oh, Min-hwan
author_facet Lee, Jongyeong
Honda, Junya
Ito, Shinji
Oh, Min-hwan
contents This paper studies the optimality of the Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader (FTPL) policy in both adversarial and stochastic $K$-armed bandits. Despite the widespread use of the Follow-the-Regularized-Leader (FTRL) framework with various choices of regularization, the FTPL framework, which relies on random perturbations, has not received much attention, despite its inherent simplicity. In adversarial bandits, there has been conjecture that FTPL could potentially achieve $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{KT})$ regrets if perturbations follow a distribution with a Fréchet-type tail. Recent work by Honda et al. (2023) showed that FTPL with Fréchet distribution with shape $α=2$ indeed attains this bound and, notably logarithmic regret in stochastic bandits, meaning the Best-of-Both-Worlds (BOBW) capability of FTPL. However, this result only partly resolves the above conjecture because their analysis heavily relies on the specific form of the Fréchet distribution with this shape. In this paper, we establish a sufficient condition for perturbations to achieve $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{KT})$ regrets in the adversarial setting, which covers, e.g., Fréchet, Pareto, and Student-$t$ distributions. We also demonstrate the BOBW achievability of FTPL with certain Fréchet-type tail distributions. Our results contribute not only to resolving existing conjectures through the lens of extreme value theory but also potentially offer insights into the effect of the regularization functions in FTRL through the mapping from FTPL to FTRL.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_05134
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader with Fréchet-type Tail Distributions: Optimality in Adversarial Bandits and Best-of-Both-Worlds
Lee, Jongyeong
Honda, Junya
Ito, Shinji
Oh, Min-hwan
Machine Learning
This paper studies the optimality of the Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader (FTPL) policy in both adversarial and stochastic $K$-armed bandits. Despite the widespread use of the Follow-the-Regularized-Leader (FTRL) framework with various choices of regularization, the FTPL framework, which relies on random perturbations, has not received much attention, despite its inherent simplicity. In adversarial bandits, there has been conjecture that FTPL could potentially achieve $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{KT})$ regrets if perturbations follow a distribution with a Fréchet-type tail. Recent work by Honda et al. (2023) showed that FTPL with Fréchet distribution with shape $α=2$ indeed attains this bound and, notably logarithmic regret in stochastic bandits, meaning the Best-of-Both-Worlds (BOBW) capability of FTPL. However, this result only partly resolves the above conjecture because their analysis heavily relies on the specific form of the Fréchet distribution with this shape. In this paper, we establish a sufficient condition for perturbations to achieve $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{KT})$ regrets in the adversarial setting, which covers, e.g., Fréchet, Pareto, and Student-$t$ distributions. We also demonstrate the BOBW achievability of FTPL with certain Fréchet-type tail distributions. Our results contribute not only to resolving existing conjectures through the lens of extreme value theory but also potentially offer insights into the effect of the regularization functions in FTRL through the mapping from FTPL to FTRL.
title Follow-the-Perturbed-Leader with Fréchet-type Tail Distributions: Optimality in Adversarial Bandits and Best-of-Both-Worlds
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05134