A time and space efficient algorithm for contextual linear bandits

Abstract

We consider a multi-armed bandit problem where payoffs are a linear function of an observed stochastic contextual variable. In the scenario where there exists a gap between optimal and suboptimal rewards, several algorithms have been proposed that achieve O(logT) regret after T time steps. However, proposed methods either have a computation complexity per iteration that scales linearly with T or achieve regrets that grow linearly with the number of contexts |χ|. We propose an ε-greedy type of algorithm that solves both limitations. In particular, when contexts are variables in ℝd, we prove that our algorithm has a constant computation complexity per iteration of O(poly(d)) and can achieve a regret of O(poly(d) log T) even when |χ| = Ω(2d). In addition, unlike previous algorithms, its space complexity scales like O(Kd2) and does not grow with T. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.