Bayesian Optimisation with Unknown Hyperparameters: Regret Bounds Logarithmically Closer to Optimal

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Ziomek, Juliusz, Adachi, Masaki, Osborne, Michael A.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Ziomek, Juliusz
Adachi, Masaki
Osborne, Michael A.
author_facet Ziomek, Juliusz
Adachi, Masaki
Osborne, Michael A.
contents Bayesian Optimization (BO) is widely used for optimising black-box functions but requires us to specify the length scale hyperparameter, which defines the smoothness of the functions the optimizer will consider. Most current BO algorithms choose this hyperparameter by maximizing the marginal likelihood of the observed data, albeit risking misspecification if the objective function is less smooth in regions we have not yet explored. The only prior solution addressing this problem with theoretical guarantees was A-GP-UCB, proposed by Berkenkamp et al. (2019). This algorithm progressively decreases the length scale, expanding the class of functions considered by the optimizer. However, A-GP-UCB lacks a stopping mechanism, leading to over-exploration and slow convergence. To overcome this, we introduce Length scale Balancing (LB) - a novel approach, aggregating multiple base surrogate models with varying length scales. LB intermittently adds smaller length scale candidate values while retaining longer scales, balancing exploration and exploitation. We formally derive a cumulative regret bound of LB and compare it with the regret of an oracle BO algorithm using the optimal length scale. Denoting the factor by which the regret bound of A-GP-UCB was away from oracle as $g(T)$, we show that LB is only $\log g(T)$ away from oracle regret. We also empirically evaluate our algorithm on synthetic and real-world benchmarks and show it outperforms A-GP-UCB, maximum likelihood estimation and MCMC.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_10384
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bayesian Optimisation with Unknown Hyperparameters: Regret Bounds Logarithmically Closer to Optimal
Ziomek, Juliusz
Adachi, Masaki
Osborne, Michael A.
Machine Learning
Bayesian Optimization (BO) is widely used for optimising black-box functions but requires us to specify the length scale hyperparameter, which defines the smoothness of the functions the optimizer will consider. Most current BO algorithms choose this hyperparameter by maximizing the marginal likelihood of the observed data, albeit risking misspecification if the objective function is less smooth in regions we have not yet explored. The only prior solution addressing this problem with theoretical guarantees was A-GP-UCB, proposed by Berkenkamp et al. (2019). This algorithm progressively decreases the length scale, expanding the class of functions considered by the optimizer. However, A-GP-UCB lacks a stopping mechanism, leading to over-exploration and slow convergence. To overcome this, we introduce Length scale Balancing (LB) - a novel approach, aggregating multiple base surrogate models with varying length scales. LB intermittently adds smaller length scale candidate values while retaining longer scales, balancing exploration and exploitation. We formally derive a cumulative regret bound of LB and compare it with the regret of an oracle BO algorithm using the optimal length scale. Denoting the factor by which the regret bound of A-GP-UCB was away from oracle as $g(T)$, we show that LB is only $\log g(T)$ away from oracle regret. We also empirically evaluate our algorithm on synthetic and real-world benchmarks and show it outperforms A-GP-UCB, maximum likelihood estimation and MCMC.
title Bayesian Optimisation with Unknown Hyperparameters: Regret Bounds Logarithmically Closer to Optimal
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10384