Dynamic Priors in Bayesian Optimization for Hyperparameter Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Fehring, Lukas, Wever, Marcel, Spliethöver, Maximilian, Hennig, Leona, Wachsmuth, Henning, Lindauer, Marius
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Fehring, Lukas
Wever, Marcel
Spliethöver, Maximilian
Hennig, Leona
Wachsmuth, Henning
Lindauer, Marius
author_facet Fehring, Lukas
Wever, Marcel
Spliethöver, Maximilian
Hennig, Leona
Wachsmuth, Henning
Lindauer, Marius
contents Bayesian optimization (BO) is a widely used approach to hyperparameter optimization (HPO). However, most existing HPO methods only incorporate expert knowledge during initialization, limiting practitioners' ability to influence the optimization process as new insights emerge. This limits the applicability of BO in iterative machine learning development workflows. We propose DynaBO, a BO framework that enables continuous user control of the optimization process. Over time, DynaBO leverages provided user priors by augmenting the acquisition function with decaying, prior-weighted preferences while preserving asymptotic convergence guarantees. To reinforce robustness, we introduce a data-driven safeguard that detects and can be used to reject misleading priors. We prove theoretical results on near-certain convergence, robustness to adversarial priors, and accelerated convergence when informative priors are provided. Extensive experiments across various HPO benchmarks show that DynaBO consistently outperforms our state-of-the-art competitors across all benchmarks and for all prior kinds. Our results demonstrate that DynaBO enables reliable and efficient collaborative BO, bridging automated and manually controlled model development.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_02570
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dynamic Priors in Bayesian Optimization for Hyperparameter Optimization
Fehring, Lukas
Wever, Marcel
Spliethöver, Maximilian
Hennig, Leona
Wachsmuth, Henning
Lindauer, Marius
Machine Learning
Bayesian optimization (BO) is a widely used approach to hyperparameter optimization (HPO). However, most existing HPO methods only incorporate expert knowledge during initialization, limiting practitioners' ability to influence the optimization process as new insights emerge. This limits the applicability of BO in iterative machine learning development workflows. We propose DynaBO, a BO framework that enables continuous user control of the optimization process. Over time, DynaBO leverages provided user priors by augmenting the acquisition function with decaying, prior-weighted preferences while preserving asymptotic convergence guarantees. To reinforce robustness, we introduce a data-driven safeguard that detects and can be used to reject misleading priors. We prove theoretical results on near-certain convergence, robustness to adversarial priors, and accelerated convergence when informative priors are provided. Extensive experiments across various HPO benchmarks show that DynaBO consistently outperforms our state-of-the-art competitors across all benchmarks and for all prior kinds. Our results demonstrate that DynaBO enables reliable and efficient collaborative BO, bridging automated and manually controlled model development.
title Dynamic Priors in Bayesian Optimization for Hyperparameter Optimization
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.02570