Causally Abstracted Multi-armed Bandits

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zennaro, Fabio Massimo, Bishop, Nicholas, Dyer, Joel, Felekis, Yorgos, Calinescu, Anisoara, Wooldridge, Michael, Damoulas, Theodoros
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Zennaro, Fabio Massimo
Bishop, Nicholas
Dyer, Joel
Felekis, Yorgos
Calinescu, Anisoara
Wooldridge, Michael
Damoulas, Theodoros
author_facet Zennaro, Fabio Massimo
Bishop, Nicholas
Dyer, Joel
Felekis, Yorgos
Calinescu, Anisoara
Wooldridge, Michael
Damoulas, Theodoros
contents Multi-armed bandits (MAB) and causal MABs (CMAB) are established frameworks for decision-making problems. The majority of prior work typically studies and solves individual MAB and CMAB in isolation for a given problem and associated data. However, decision-makers are often faced with multiple related problems and multi-scale observations where joint formulations are needed in order to efficiently exploit the problem structures and data dependencies. Transfer learning for CMABs addresses the situation where models are defined on identical variables, although causal connections may differ. In this work, we extend transfer learning to setups involving CMABs defined on potentially different variables, with varying degrees of granularity, and related via an abstraction map. Formally, we introduce the problem of causally abstracted MABs (CAMABs) by relying on the theory of causal abstraction in order to express a rigorous abstraction map. We propose algorithms to learn in a CAMAB, and study their regret. We illustrate the limitations and the strengths of our algorithms on a real-world scenario related to online advertising.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_17493
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Causally Abstracted Multi-armed Bandits
Zennaro, Fabio Massimo
Bishop, Nicholas
Dyer, Joel
Felekis, Yorgos
Calinescu, Anisoara
Wooldridge, Michael
Damoulas, Theodoros
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Multi-armed bandits (MAB) and causal MABs (CMAB) are established frameworks for decision-making problems. The majority of prior work typically studies and solves individual MAB and CMAB in isolation for a given problem and associated data. However, decision-makers are often faced with multiple related problems and multi-scale observations where joint formulations are needed in order to efficiently exploit the problem structures and data dependencies. Transfer learning for CMABs addresses the situation where models are defined on identical variables, although causal connections may differ. In this work, we extend transfer learning to setups involving CMABs defined on potentially different variables, with varying degrees of granularity, and related via an abstraction map. Formally, we introduce the problem of causally abstracted MABs (CAMABs) by relying on the theory of causal abstraction in order to express a rigorous abstraction map. We propose algorithms to learn in a CAMAB, and study their regret. We illustrate the limitations and the strengths of our algorithms on a real-world scenario related to online advertising.
title Causally Abstracted Multi-armed Bandits
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.17493