Wasserstein Barycenter Gaussian Process based Bayesian Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Candelieri, Antonio, Ponti, Andrea, Archetti, Francesco
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Candelieri, Antonio
Ponti, Andrea
Archetti, Francesco
author_facet Candelieri, Antonio
Ponti, Andrea
Archetti, Francesco
contents Gaussian Process based Bayesian Optimization is a widely applied algorithm to learn and optimize under uncertainty, well-known for its sample efficiency. However, recently -- and more frequently -- research studies have empirically demonstrated that the Gaussian Process fitting procedure at its core could be its most relevant weakness. Fitting a Gaussian Process means tuning its kernel's hyperparameters to a set of observations, but the common Maximum Likelihood Estimation technique, usually appropriate for learning tasks, has shown different criticalities in Bayesian Optimization, making theoretical analysis of this algorithm an open challenge. Exploiting the analogy between Gaussian Processes and Gaussian Distributions, we present a new approach which uses a prefixed set of hyperparameters values to fit as many Gaussian Processes and then combines them into a unique model as a Wasserstein Barycenter of Gaussian Processes. We considered both "easy" test problems and others known to undermine the \textit{vanilla} Bayesian Optimization algorithm. The new method, namely Wasserstein Barycenter Gausssian Process based Bayesian Optimization (WBGP-BO), resulted promising and able to converge to the optimum, contrary to vanilla Bayesian Optimization, also on the most "tricky" test problems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_12471
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Wasserstein Barycenter Gaussian Process based Bayesian Optimization
Candelieri, Antonio
Ponti, Andrea
Archetti, Francesco
Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
Gaussian Process based Bayesian Optimization is a widely applied algorithm to learn and optimize under uncertainty, well-known for its sample efficiency. However, recently -- and more frequently -- research studies have empirically demonstrated that the Gaussian Process fitting procedure at its core could be its most relevant weakness. Fitting a Gaussian Process means tuning its kernel's hyperparameters to a set of observations, but the common Maximum Likelihood Estimation technique, usually appropriate for learning tasks, has shown different criticalities in Bayesian Optimization, making theoretical analysis of this algorithm an open challenge. Exploiting the analogy between Gaussian Processes and Gaussian Distributions, we present a new approach which uses a prefixed set of hyperparameters values to fit as many Gaussian Processes and then combines them into a unique model as a Wasserstein Barycenter of Gaussian Processes. We considered both "easy" test problems and others known to undermine the \textit{vanilla} Bayesian Optimization algorithm. The new method, namely Wasserstein Barycenter Gausssian Process based Bayesian Optimization (WBGP-BO), resulted promising and able to converge to the optimum, contrary to vanilla Bayesian Optimization, also on the most "tricky" test problems.
title Wasserstein Barycenter Gaussian Process based Bayesian Optimization
topic Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.12471