In-Context Black-Box Optimization with Unreliable Feedback
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arXiv:2606. 07841v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Black-box variational inference (BBVI) is a methodology for posterior approximation that relies on stochastic optimization.
IQS-BO introduces an in‑context query selection method for Bayesian optimisation that learns to choose evaluation points via supervised learning on synthetic priors. The approach uses a Prior‑data Fitted Network (PFN) to predict, in a single forward pass, the probability that each candidate maximises the objective, thereby amortising the decision step and eliminating the need for costly surrogate refitting or acquisition maximisation. Experiments show that IQS‑BO matches or surpasses traditional Gaussian‑process‑based BO and other in‑context methods on both synthetic and real‑world benchmarks, and that a mixture prior combining GP samples with challenging function types further improves performance.
arXiv:2511. 02570v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Bayesian optimization (BO) is a widely used approach to hyperparameter optimization (HPO).
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used as heuristic advisors for black-box optimization, yet their suggestions and self-reported confidence are not necessarily calibrated to downstream objective values. This issue becomes more pronounced in multi-objective Bayesian optimization, where different objectives may require different expert knowledge and where an LLM expert can be useful for one objective but misleading for another.
arXiv:2602.07144v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Bayesian optimization (BO) is a popular technique for sample-efficient optimization of black-box functions. In many applications, the parameters be...
GRAPE is a two‑stage Bayesian optimization framework that first refines the local gradient posterior using a closed‑form acquisition function and then selects update directions by maximizing expected decrease conditioned on descent. The authors prove that the refinement stage monotonically reduces local uncertainty and that the progress‑aware direction converges to true steepest descent as the posterior sharpens. Empirical results show GRAPE achieves a 5.4× speedup on black‑box adversarial attacks and reduces final average regret by 3.8 log‑units on large language model prompt‑optimization tasks.