Prices, Bids, Values: One ML-Powered Combinatorial Auction to Rule Them All

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Soumalias, Ermis, Heiss, Jakob, Weissteiner, Jakob, Seuken, Sven
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Soumalias, Ermis
Heiss, Jakob
Weissteiner, Jakob
Seuken, Sven
author_facet Soumalias, Ermis
Heiss, Jakob
Weissteiner, Jakob
Seuken, Sven
contents We study the design of iterative combinatorial auctions (ICAs). The main challenge in this domain is that the bundle space grows exponentially in the number of items. To address this, recent work has proposed machine learning (ML)-based preference elicitation algorithms that aim to elicit only the most critical information from bidders to maximize efficiency. However, while the SOTA ML-based algorithms elicit bidders' preferences via value queries, ICAs that are used in practice elicit information via \emph{demand queries}. In this paper, we introduce a novel ML algorithm that provably makes use of the full information from both value and demand queries, and we show via experiments that combining both query types results in significantly better learning performance in practice. Building on these insights, we present MLHCA, a new ML-powered auction that uses value and demand queries. MLHCA significantly outperforms the previous SOTA, reducing efficiency loss by up to a factor 10, with up to 58\% fewer queries. Thus, MLHCA achieves large efficiency improvements while also reducing bidders' cognitive load, establishing a new benchmark for both practicability and efficiency. Our code is available at https://github.com/marketdesignresearch/MLHCA.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_09355
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Prices, Bids, Values: One ML-Powered Combinatorial Auction to Rule Them All
Soumalias, Ermis
Heiss, Jakob
Weissteiner, Jakob
Seuken, Sven
Computer Science and Game Theory
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
91A06, 68T07, 91-08, 91B26
I.2; I.2.6; J.4
We study the design of iterative combinatorial auctions (ICAs). The main challenge in this domain is that the bundle space grows exponentially in the number of items. To address this, recent work has proposed machine learning (ML)-based preference elicitation algorithms that aim to elicit only the most critical information from bidders to maximize efficiency. However, while the SOTA ML-based algorithms elicit bidders' preferences via value queries, ICAs that are used in practice elicit information via \emph{demand queries}. In this paper, we introduce a novel ML algorithm that provably makes use of the full information from both value and demand queries, and we show via experiments that combining both query types results in significantly better learning performance in practice. Building on these insights, we present MLHCA, a new ML-powered auction that uses value and demand queries. MLHCA significantly outperforms the previous SOTA, reducing efficiency loss by up to a factor 10, with up to 58\% fewer queries. Thus, MLHCA achieves large efficiency improvements while also reducing bidders' cognitive load, establishing a new benchmark for both practicability and efficiency. Our code is available at https://github.com/marketdesignresearch/MLHCA.
title Prices, Bids, Values: One ML-Powered Combinatorial Auction to Rule Them All
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
91A06, 68T07, 91-08, 91B26
I.2; I.2.6; J.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.09355