arXiv:2410.00075cs.SIcs.LG2024-10被引 6

解决网络干扰下治疗分配优化问题,提升营销等场景的推广效果。

Optimizing Treatment Allocation in the Presence of Interference

  • 结合因果估计与经典影响力最大化算法,优化网络中的治疗分配。
  • 在合成与半合成数据集上,优于传统方法,显著提升总响应率。
  • 适合需考虑用户间相互影响的精准营销、政策干预等场景。

在影响力最大化(IM)问题中,目标是在给定预算下选择网络中最优的实体集合进行干预,以最大化整体影响。例如,在营销中,需选择能带来最高总响应率的客户群体,该响应不仅来自直接干预,还包括由被干预者引发的间接传播效应。近年来,已有新方法用于估计存在网络干扰时的处理效应,但如何利用这些模型做出更优的干预分配决策仍被忽视。传统增益建模(UM)通常根据估计效应排序并选择前若干实体,但在网络环境中因个体间相互影响,此法次优。寻找网络环境下的最优干预分配是 extcolor{red}{NP-hard} 问题,通常需启发式求解。为弥合 IM 与 UM 的差距,我们提出 OTAPI:在存在干扰的情况下优化治疗分配,利用处理效应估计求解 IM 问题。OTAPI 包含两步:首先训练因果估计器预测网络中的处理效应;其次将该估计器融入经典 IM 算法,以识别最优干预分配。实验表明,该方法在合成与半合成数据集上均优于经典 IM 和 UM 方法。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

In Influence Maximization (IM), the objective is to -- given a budget -- select the optimal set of entities in a network to target with a treatment so as to maximize the total effect. For instance, in marketing, the objective is to target the set of customers that maximizes the total response rate, resulting from both direct treatment effects on targeted customers and indirect, spillover, effects that follow from targeting these customers. Recently, new methods to estimate treatment effects in the presence of network interference have been proposed. However, the issue of how to leverage these models to make better treatment allocation decisions has been largely overlooked. Traditionally, in Uplift Modeling (UM), entities are ranked according to estimated treatment effect, and the top entities are allocated treatment. Since, in a network context, entities influence each other, the UM ranking approach will be suboptimal. The problem of finding the optimal treatment allocation in a network setting is \textcolor{red}{NP-hard,} and generally has to be solved heuristically. To fill the gap between IM and UM, we propose OTAPI: Optimizing Treatment Allocation in the Presence of Interference to find solutions to the IM problem using treatment effect estimates. OTAPI consists of two steps. First, a causal estimator is trained to predict treatment effects in a network setting. Second, this estimator is leveraged to identify an optimal treatment allocation by integrating it into classic IM algorithms. We demonstrate that this novel method outperforms classic IM and UM approaches on both synthetic and semi-synthetic datasets.

影响力最大化因果推断干预优化

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