arXiv Machine Learning

Constant regret in general games via higher-order optimism

The paper presents an uncoupled learning algorithm, higher-order optimism with discounting (HOOD), for arbitrary N-player normal form games with up to K actions per player. HOOD achieves an individual regret bound of O(N³ log² K) uniformly over the play horizon by combining a discounted (N+1)-th order predictor with entropic regularization over a lifted strategy space. This design mitigates large oscillations in play, addressing a key challenge in prior attempts to attain constant regret in general games.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 1

Constant Individual Regret in General Games

arXiv:2608. 31166v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Uncoupled no-regret dynamics provide a decentralized route to equilibrium, but prior guarantees for individual regret retain a polylogarithmic dependence on the horizon.

By Mingyang Liu, Gabriele Farina, Asuman Ozdaglar
arXiv AI
3d ago

On the Complexity of Preference-Based Bandits

The paper investigates preference-based bandits where a learner selects pairs of arms and receives binary preference feedback modeled by Bradley–Terry. It introduces the locally sensitive eluder dimension, a new complexity measure for logistic preference feedback, and proposes the GINOP algorithm that uses log-loss confidence sets to balance optimism and exploration. The authors prove a first-order regret bound showing that learning with preference feedback can be as statistically efficient as learning from direct rewards, and they validate their theory with empirical experiments.

By Ahmed Ben Yahmed (CREST, ENSAE Paris, FAIRPLAY), Marc Abeille (FAIRPLAY), Cl\'ement Calauz\`enes (FAIRPLAY)
arXiv AI
Jul 10

Provably Optimal Learning Algorithms for Assistance Games

arXiv:2607. 08012v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: This paper studies an online variant of the assistance games framework, where an informed agent and an uninformed agent repeatedly interact over $T$ timesteps to optimize a common reward function.

By Nivasini Ananthakrishnan, Mark Bedaywi, Michael I. Jordan, Stuart Russell, Nika Haghtalab