Information Directed Sampling for Sparse Linear Bandits

Botao Hao, Tor Lattimore, Wei Deng

Keywords: Information-directed sampling, sparse linear bandits, Bayesian regret

TL;DR: We investigate the theoretic and practical applicability of information-directed sampling for sparse linear bandits.

Abstract: Stochastic sparse linear bandits offer a practical model for high-dimensional online decision-making problems and have a rich information-regret structure. In this work we explore the use of information-directed sampling (IDS), which naturally balances the information-regret trade-off. We develop a class of information-theoretic Bayesian regret bounds that nearly match existing lower bounds on a variety of problem instances, demonstrating the adaptivity of IDS. To efficiently implement sparse IDS, we propose an empirical Bayesian approach for sparse posterior sampling using a spike-and-slab Gaussian-Laplace prior. Numerical results demonstrate significant regret reductions by sparse IDS relative to several baselines.

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