Real-time bidding has emerged as an effective online advertising technique. With real-time bidding, advertisers can position ads per impression, enabling them to optimise ad campaigns by targeting specific audiences in real-time. This paper proposes a novel method for real-time bidding that combines deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques to enhance the efficiency and precision of the bidding process. In particular, the proposed method employs a deep neural network to predict auction details and market prices and a reinforcement learning algorithm to determine the optimal bid price. The model is trained using historical data from the iPinYou dataset and compared to cutting-edge real-time bidding algorithms. The outcomes demonstrate that the proposed method is preferable regarding cost-effectiveness and precision. In addition, the study investigates the influence of various model parameters on the performance of the proposed algorithm. It offers insights into the efficacy of the combined deep learning and reinforcement learning approach for real-time bidding. This study contributes to advancing techniques and offers a promising direction for future research.
In the scenario of class-incremental learning (CIL), deep neural networks have to adapt their model parameters to non-stationary data distributions, e.g., the emergence of new classes over time. However, CIL models are challenged by the well-known catastrophic forgetting phenomenon. Typical methods such as rehearsal-based ones rely on storing exemplars of old classes to mitigate catastrophic forgetting, which limits real-world applications considering memory resources and privacy issues. In this paper, we propose a novel rehearsal-free CIL approach that learns continually via the synergy between two Complementary Learning Subnetworks. Our approach involves jointly optimizing a plastic CNN feature extractor and an analytical feed-forward classifier. The inaccessibility of historical data is tackled by holistically controlling the parameters of a well-trained model, ensuring that the decision boundary learned fits new classes while retaining recognition of previously learned classes. Specifically, the trainable CNN feature extractor provides task-dependent knowledge separately without interference; and the final classifier integrates task-specific knowledge incrementally for decision-making without forgetting. In each CIL session, it accommodates new tasks by attaching a tiny set of declarative parameters to its backbone, in which only one matrix per task or one vector per class is kept for knowledge retention. Extensive experiments on a variety of task sequences show that our method achieves competitive results against state-of-the-art methods, especially in accuracy gain, memory cost, training efficiency, and task-order robustness. Furthermore, to make the non-growing backbone (i.e., a model with limited network capacity) suffice to train on more incoming tasks, a graceful forgetting implementation on previously learned trivial tasks is empirically investigated.
Autonomous agents deployed in the real world need to be robust against adversarial attacks on sensory inputs. Robustifying agent policies requires anticipating the strongest attacks possible. We demonstrate that existing observation-space attacks on reinforcement learning agents have a common weakness: while effective, their lack of temporal consistency makes them detectable using automated means or human inspection. Detectability is undesirable to adversaries as it may trigger security escalations. We introduce perfect illusory attacks, a novel form of adversarial attack on sequential decision-makers that is both effective and provably statistically undetectable. We then propose the more versatile R-attacks, which result in observation transitions that are consistent with the state-transition function of the adversary-free environment and can be learned end-to-end. Compared to existing attacks, we empirically find R-attacks to be significantly harder to detect with automated methods, and a small study with human subjects suggests they are similarly harder to detect for humans. We propose that undetectability should be a central concern in the study of adversarial attacks on mixed-autonomy settings.
Warm-Start reinforcement learning (RL), aided by a prior policy obtained from offline training, is emerging as a promising RL approach for practical applications. Recent empirical studies have demonstrated that the performance of Warm-Start RL can be improved \textit{quickly} in some cases but become \textit{stagnant} in other cases, especially when the function approximation is used. To this end, the primary objective of this work is to build a fundamental understanding on ``\textit{whether and when online learning can be significantly accelerated by a warm-start policy from offline RL?}''. Specifically, we consider the widely used Actor-Critic (A-C) method with a prior policy. We first quantify the approximation errors in the Actor update and the Critic update, respectively. Next, we cast the Warm-Start A-C algorithm as Newton's method with perturbation, and study the impact of the approximation errors on the finite-time learning performance with inaccurate Actor/Critic updates. Under some general technical conditions, we derive the upper bounds, which shed light on achieving the desired finite-learning performance in the Warm-Start A-C algorithm. In particular, our findings reveal that it is essential to reduce the algorithm bias in online learning. We also obtain lower bounds on the sub-optimality gap of the Warm-Start A-C algorithm to quantify the impact of the bias and error propagation.
As a subjective metric to evaluate the quality of synthesized speech, Mean opinion score~(MOS) usually requires multiple annotators to score the same speech. Such an annotation approach requires a lot of manpower and is also time-consuming. MOS prediction model for automatic evaluation can significantly reduce labor cost. In previous works, it is difficult to accurately rank the quality of speech when the MOS scores are close. However, in practical applications, it is more important to correctly rank the quality of synthesis systems or sentences than simply predicting MOS scores. Meanwhile, as each annotator scores multiple audios during annotation, the score is probably a relative value based on the first or the first few speech scores given by the annotator. Motivated by the above two points, we propose a general framework for MOS prediction based on pair comparison (MOSPC), and we utilize C-Mixup algorithm to enhance the generalization performance of MOSPC. The experiments on BVCC and VCC2018 show that our framework outperforms the baselines on most of the correlation coefficient metrics, especially on the metric KTAU related to quality ranking. And our framework also surpasses the strong baseline in ranking accuracy on each fine-grained segment. These results indicate that our framework contributes to improving the ranking accuracy of speech quality.
We introduce variational sequential Optimal Experimental Design (vsOED), a new method for optimally designing a finite sequence of experiments under a Bayesian framework and with information-gain utilities. Specifically, we adopt a lower bound estimator for the expected utility through variational approximation to the Bayesian posteriors. The optimal design policy is solved numerically by simultaneously maximizing the variational lower bound and performing policy gradient updates. We demonstrate this general methodology for a range of OED problems targeting parameter inference, model discrimination, and goal-oriented prediction. These cases encompass explicit and implicit likelihoods, nuisance parameters, and physics-based partial differential equation models. Our vsOED results indicate substantially improved sample efficiency and reduced number of forward model simulations compared to previous sequential design algorithms.
Machine learning methods are commonly evaluated and compared by their performance on data sets from public repositories. This allows for multiple methods, oftentimes several thousands, to be evaluated under identical conditions and across time. The highest ranked performance on a problem is referred to as state-of-the-art (SOTA) performance, and is used, among other things, as a reference point for publication of new methods. Using the highest-ranked performance as an estimate for SOTA is a biased estimator, giving overly optimistic results. The mechanisms at play are those of multiplicity, a topic that is well-studied in the context of multiple comparisons and multiple testing, but has, as far as the authors are aware of, been nearly absent from the discussion regarding SOTA estimates. The optimistic state-of-the-art estimate is used as a standard for evaluating new methods, and methods with substantial inferior results are easily overlooked. In this article, we provide a probability distribution for the case of multiple classifiers so that known analyses methods can be engaged and a better SOTA estimate can be provided. We demonstrate the impact of multiplicity through a simulated example with independent classifiers. We show how classifier dependency impacts the variance, but also that the impact is limited when the accuracy is high. Finally, we discuss a real-world example; a Kaggle competition from 2020.
In recent years, online social networks have been the target of adversaries who seek to introduce discord into societies, to undermine democracies and to destabilize communities. Often the goal is not to favor a certain side of a conflict but to increase disagreement and polarization. To get a mathematical understanding of such attacks, researchers use opinion-formation models from sociology, such as the Friedkin--Johnsen model, and formally study how much discord the adversary can produce when altering the opinions for only a small set of users. In this line of work, it is commonly assumed that the adversary has full knowledge about the network topology and the opinions of all users. However, the latter assumption is often unrealistic in practice, where user opinions are not available or simply difficult to estimate accurately. To address this concern, we raise the following question: Can an attacker sow discord in a social network, even when only the network topology is known? We answer this question affirmatively. We present approximation algorithms for detecting a small set of users who are highly influential for the disagreement and polarization in the network. We show that when the adversary radicalizes these users and if the initial disagreement/polarization in the network is not very high, then our method gives a constant-factor approximation on the setting when the user opinions are known. To find the set of influential users, we provide a novel approximation algorithm for a variant of MaxCut in graphs with positive and negative edge weights. We experimentally evaluate our methods, which have access only to the network topology, and we find that they have similar performance as methods that have access to the network topology and all user opinions. We further present an NP-hardness proof, which was an open question by Chen and Racz [IEEE Trans. Netw. Sci. Eng., 2021].
Reinforcement learning (RL) for physical design of silicon chips in a Google 2021 Nature paper stirred controversy due to poorly documented claims that raised eyebrows and attracted critical media coverage. The Nature paper withheld most inputs needed to produce reported results and some critical steps in the methodology. But two independent evaluations filled in the gaps and demonstrated that Google RL lags behind human designers, behind a well-known algorithm (Simulated Annealing), and also behind generally-available commercial software. Crosschecked data indicate that the integrity of the Nature paper is substantially undermined owing to errors in the conduct, analysis and reporting.
As data are increasingly being stored in different silos and societies becoming more aware of data privacy issues, the traditional centralized training of artificial intelligence (AI) models is facing efficiency and privacy challenges. Recently, federated learning (FL) has emerged as an alternative solution and continue to thrive in this new reality. Existing FL protocol design has been shown to be vulnerable to adversaries within or outside of the system, compromising data privacy and system robustness. Besides training powerful global models, it is of paramount importance to design FL systems that have privacy guarantees and are resistant to different types of adversaries. In this paper, we conduct the first comprehensive survey on this topic. Through a concise introduction to the concept of FL, and a unique taxonomy covering: 1) threat models; 2) poisoning attacks and defenses against robustness; 3) inference attacks and defenses against privacy, we provide an accessible review of this important topic. We highlight the intuitions, key techniques as well as fundamental assumptions adopted by various attacks and defenses. Finally, we discuss promising future research directions towards robust and privacy-preserving federated learning.
Reinforcement learning is one of the core components in designing an artificial intelligent system emphasizing real-time response. Reinforcement learning influences the system to take actions within an arbitrary environment either having previous knowledge about the environment model or not. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study on Reinforcement Learning focusing on various dimensions including challenges, the recent development of different state-of-the-art techniques, and future directions. The fundamental objective of this paper is to provide a framework for the presentation of available methods of reinforcement learning that is informative enough and simple to follow for the new researchers and academics in this domain considering the latest concerns. First, we illustrated the core techniques of reinforcement learning in an easily understandable and comparable way. Finally, we analyzed and depicted the recent developments in reinforcement learning approaches. My analysis pointed out that most of the models focused on tuning policy values rather than tuning other things in a particular state of reasoning.