Multiplier Bootstrap-based Exploration

Runzhe Wan, Haoyu Wei, Branislav Kveton, Rui Song

Abstract: Despite the great interest in the bandit problem, designing efficient algorithms for complex models remains challenging, as there is typically no analytical way to quantify uncertainty. In this paper, we propose Multiplier Bootstrap-based Exploration (MBE), a novel exploration strategy that is applicable to any reward model amenable to weighted loss minimization. We prove both instance-dependent and instance-independent rate-optimal regret bounds for MBE in sub-Gaussian multi-armed bandits. With extensive simulation and real-data experiments, we show the generality and adaptivity of MBE.

Submission Number: 2038