Structured Reinforcement Learning for Incentivized Stochastic Covert Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Jain, Adit, Krishnamurthy, Vikram
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Jain, Adit
Krishnamurthy, Vikram
author_facet Jain, Adit
Krishnamurthy, Vikram
contents This paper studies how a stochastic gradient algorithm (SG) can be controlled to hide the estimate of the local stationary point from an eavesdropper. Such problems are of significant interest in distributed optimization settings like federated learning and inventory management. A learner queries a stochastic oracle and incentivizes the oracle to obtain noisy gradient measurements and perform SG. The oracle probabilistically returns either a noisy gradient of the function} or a non-informative measurement, depending on the oracle state and incentive. The learner's query and incentive are visible to an eavesdropper who wishes to estimate the stationary point. This paper formulates the problem of the learner performing covert optimization by dynamically incentivizing the stochastic oracle and obfuscating the eavesdropper as a finite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP). Using conditions for interval-dominance on the cost and transition probability structure, we show that the optimal policy for the MDP has a monotone threshold structure. We propose searching for the optimal stationary policy with the threshold structure using a stochastic approximation algorithm and a multi-armed bandit approach. The effectiveness of our methods is numerically demonstrated on a covert federated learning hate-speech classification task.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_07415
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Structured Reinforcement Learning for Incentivized Stochastic Covert Optimization
Jain, Adit
Krishnamurthy, Vikram
Machine Learning
Systems and Control
This paper studies how a stochastic gradient algorithm (SG) can be controlled to hide the estimate of the local stationary point from an eavesdropper. Such problems are of significant interest in distributed optimization settings like federated learning and inventory management. A learner queries a stochastic oracle and incentivizes the oracle to obtain noisy gradient measurements and perform SG. The oracle probabilistically returns either a noisy gradient of the function} or a non-informative measurement, depending on the oracle state and incentive. The learner's query and incentive are visible to an eavesdropper who wishes to estimate the stationary point. This paper formulates the problem of the learner performing covert optimization by dynamically incentivizing the stochastic oracle and obfuscating the eavesdropper as a finite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP). Using conditions for interval-dominance on the cost and transition probability structure, we show that the optimal policy for the MDP has a monotone threshold structure. We propose searching for the optimal stationary policy with the threshold structure using a stochastic approximation algorithm and a multi-armed bandit approach. The effectiveness of our methods is numerically demonstrated on a covert federated learning hate-speech classification task.
title Structured Reinforcement Learning for Incentivized Stochastic Covert Optimization
topic Machine Learning
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.07415