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Optimal regret algorithm for Pseudo-1d Bandit Convex Optimization

Aadirupa Saha · Nagarajan Natarajan · Praneeth Netrapalli · Prateek Jain

Abstract: We study online learning with bandit feedback (i.e. learner has access to only zeroth-order oracle) where cost/reward functions \ft admit a "pseudo-1d" structure, i.e. \ft(\w)=\losst(\predt(\w)) where the output of \predt is one-dimensional. At each round, the learner observes context \xt, plays prediction \predt(\wt;\xt) (e.g. \predt()=\xt,) for some \wtRd and observes loss \losst(\predt(\wt)) where \losst is a convex Lipschitz-continuous function. The goal is to minimize the standard regret metric. This pseudo-1d bandit convex optimization problem (\SBCO) arises frequently in domains such as online decision-making or parameter-tuning in large systems. For this problem, we first show a regret lower bound of min(dT,T3/4) for any algorithm, where T is the number of rounds. We propose a new algorithm \sbcalg that combines randomized online gradient descent with a kernelized exponential weights method to exploit the pseudo-1d structure effectively, guaranteeing the {\em optimal} regret bound mentioned above, up to additional logarithmic factors. In contrast, applying state-of-the-art online convex optimization methods leads to O~(min(d9.5T,dT3/4)) regret, that is significantly suboptimal in terms of d.

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