arXiv Machine Learning By Huiming Zhang, Binghan Li, Wan Tian, Qiang Sun

Tail-Aware Information-Theoretic Bounds for LLM Alignment under Heavy-Tailed Rewards

Read the original on arXiv Machine Learning →

arXiv:2604. 10727v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Classical information-theoretic learning bounds typically rely on KL mutual information and moment-generating-function (MGF) arguments, which are well matched to bounded or sub-Gaussian losses but can be ineffective when losses or rewards are heavy-tailed.

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arXiv Machine Learning
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By Gianmarco Genalti, Alberto Maria Metelli
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Asymptotic Optimality of Thompson Sampling for Risk-Averse Bandits with Sub-Gaussian Rewards

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By Joel Q. L. Chang
arXiv Machine Learning
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Multiscale Reward Hedging from Correct Demonstrations

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Hugging Face Trending Papers
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Asymptotic Optimality of Thompson Sampling for Risk-Averse Bandits with Sub-Gaussian Rewards

We prove that $ρ\text{-}\mathrm{NPTS}_{\mathrm{SG}}$, an anchor-free nonparametric Thompson Sampling algorithm for risk-averse bandits, achieves regret matching the instance-dependent lower bound to leading order in $\log n$, establishing it as asymptotically optimal for any continuous risk functional $ρ$ (CVaR, mean-variance, Sharpe ratio, distortion risk measures, and more) on the class of distributions with bounded density and sub-Gaussian tails, including Gaussian arms. Both this result and its bounded-support counterpart require only continuity of $ρ$: strictly weaker than the dominance condition of prior parametric Thompson Sampling results, and strictly weaker than the Lipschitz condition of UCB-type algorithms, yielding the first instance-optimal guarantees for non-Lipschitz functionals such as the Sharpe ratio without parametric reward assumptions.