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 game theory


Local Aggregative Games

Neural Information Processing Systems

Aggregative games provide a rich abstraction to model strategic multi-agent interactions. We focus on learning local aggregative games, where the payoff of each player is a function of its own action and the aggregate behavior of its neighbors in a connected digraph. We show the existence of a pure strategy epsilon-Nash equilibrium in such games when the payoff functions are convex or sub-modular. We prove an information theoretic lower bound, in a value oracle model, on approximating the structure of the digraph with non-negative monotone sub-modular cost functions on the edge set cardinality. We also introduce gamma-aggregative games that generalize local aggregative games, and admit epsilon-Nash equilibrium that are stable with respect to small changes in some specified graph property. Moreover, we provide estimation algorithms for the game theoretic model that can meaningfully recover the underlying structure and payoff functions from real voting data.


Statistical Cost Sharing

Neural Information Processing Systems

We study the cost sharing problem for cooperative games in situations where the cost function C is not available via oracle queries, but must instead be learned from samples drawn from a distribution, represented as tuples (S, C(S)), for different subsets S of players. We formalize this approach, which we call statistical cost sharing, and consider the computation of the core and the Shapley value. Expanding on the work by Balcan et al, we give precise sample complexity bounds for computing cost shares that satisfy the core property with high probability for any function with a non-empty core. For the Shapley value, which has never been studied in this setting, we show that for submodular cost functions with curvature bounded curvature kappa it can be approximated from samples from the uniform distribution to a sqrt{1 - kappa} factor, and that the bound is tight. We then define statistical analogues of the Shapley axioms, and derive a notion of statistical Shapley value and that these can be approximated arbitrarily well from samples from any distribution and for any function.


A multi-agent reinforcement learning model of common-pool resource appropriation

Neural Information Processing Systems

Humanity faces numerous problems of common-pool resource appropriation. This class of multi-agent social dilemma includes the problems of ensuring sustainable use of fresh water, common fisheries, grazing pastures, and irrigation systems. Abstract models of common-pool resource appropriation based on non-cooperative game theory predict that self-interested agents will generally fail to find socially positive equilibria---a phenomenon called the tragedy of the commons. However, in reality, human societies are sometimes able to discover and implement stable cooperative solutions. Decades of behavioral game theory research have sought to uncover aspects of human behavior that make this possible.


Human Decision-Making under Limited Time

Neural Information Processing Systems

Subjective expected utility theory assumes that decision-makers possess unlimited computational resources to reason about their choices; however, virtually all decisions in everyday life are made under resource constraints---i.e.



Negotiable Reinforcement Learning for Pareto Optimal Sequential Decision-Making

Neural Information Processing Systems

It is commonly believed that an agent making decisions on behalf of two or more principals who have different utility functions should adopt a Pareto optimal policy, i.e. a policy that cannot be improved upon for one principal without making sacrifices for another. Harsanyi's theorem shows that when the principals have a common prior on the outcome distributions of all policies, a Pareto optimal policy for the agent is one that maximizes a fixed, weighted linear combination of the principals' utilities. In this paper, we derive a more precise generalization for the sequential decision setting in the case of principals with different priors on the dynamics of the environment. We refer to this generalization as the Negotiable Reinforcement Learning (NRL) framework. In this more general case, the relative weight given to each principal's utility should evolve over time according to how well the agent's observations conform with that principal's prior. To gain insight into the dynamics of this new framework, we implement a simple NRL agent and empirically examine its behavior in a simple environment.


Bandit Learning in Concave N-Person Games

Neural Information Processing Systems

This paper examines the long-run behavior of learning with bandit feedback in non-cooperative concave games. The bandit framework accounts for extremely low-information environments where the agents may not even know they are playing a game; as such, the agents' most sensible choice in this setting would be to employ a no-regret learning algorithm. In general, this does not mean that the players' behavior stabilizes in the long run: no-regret learning may lead to cycles, even with perfect gradient information. However, if a standard monotonicity condition is satisfied, our analysis shows that no-regret learning based on mirror descent with bandit feedback converges to Nash equilibrium with probability 1. We also derive an upper bound for the convergence rate of the process that nearly matches the best attainable rate for single-agent bandit stochastic optimization.


Efficient Uncoupled Learning Dynamics with $\tilde{O}\!\left(T^{-1/4}\right)$ Last-Iterate Convergence in Bilinear Saddle-Point Problems over Convex Sets under Bandit Feedback

Maiti, Arnab, Zhang, Claire Jie, Jamieson, Kevin, Morgenstern, Jamie Heather, Panageas, Ioannis, Ratliff, Lillian J.

arXiv.org Machine Learning

In this paper, we study last-iterate convergence of learning algorithms in bilinear saddle-point problems, a preferable notion of convergence that captures the day-to-day behavior of learning dynamics. We focus on the challenging setting where players select actions from compact convex sets and receive only bandit feedback. Our main contribution is the design of an uncoupled learning algorithm that guarantees last-iterate convergence to the Nash equilibrium with high probability. We establish a convergence rate of $\tilde{O}(T^{-1/4})$ up to polynomial factors in problem parameters. Crucially, our proposed algorithm is computationally efficient, requiring only an efficient linear optimization oracle over the players' compact action sets. The algorithm is obtained by combining techniques from experimental design and the classic Follow-The-Regularized-Leader (FTRL) framework, with a carefully chosen regularizer function tailored to the geometry of the action set of each learner.