Efficient Algorithms for Generalized Linear Bandits with Heavy-tailed Rewards

Bo Xue, Yimu Wang, Yuanyu Wan, Jinfeng Yi, Lijun Zhang

Keywords: linear bandits, heavy-tailed, truncated, mean of medians

TL;DR: Our truncation-based algorithm supports online learning and mean-of-medians-based algorithm requires only one estimator per epoch, distinguishing it from existing truncation-based approaches.

Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of generalized linear bandits with heavy-tailed rewards, whose $(1+\epsilon)$-th moment is bounded for some $\epsilon\in (0,1]$. Although there exist methods for generalized linear bandits, most of them focus on bounded or sub-Gaussian rewards and are not well-suited for many real-world scenarios, such as financial markets and web-advertising. To address this issue, we propose two novel algorithms based on truncation and mean of medians. These algorithms achieve an almost optimal regret bound of $\widetilde{O}(dT^{\frac{1}{1+\epsilon}})$, where $d$ is the dimension of contextual information and $T$ is the time horizon. Our truncation-based algorithm supports online learning, distinguishing it from existing truncation-based approaches. Additionally, our mean-of-medians-based algorithm requires only $O(\log T)$ rewards and one estimator per epoch, making it more practical. Moreover, our algorithms improve the regret bounds by a logarithmic factor compared to existing algorithms when $\epsilon=1$. Numerical experimental results confirm the merits of our algorithms.

Submission Number: 4183