用排名信息优化黑箱函数,让贝叶斯优化在没具体数值时也能高效工作。
Quantile-Scaled Bayesian Optimization Using Rank-Only Feedback
- 将排名转化为分位数缩放的高斯目标,适配标准贝叶斯优化流程
- 在多个测试函数上比随机搜索更低的最优值和更稳定的表现
- 适合偏好学习、推荐系统等无法获取精确评分的场景
贝叶斯优化(BO)广泛用于优化昂贵的黑箱函数,尤其在超参数调优中。然而,标准BO假设可获得精确的目标值,在实际场景中常不可得、噪声大或不可靠,只能获取相对或排名反馈。本文提出分位数缩放贝叶斯优化(QS-BO),一种基于排名的优化框架。QS-BO通过分位数缩放流程将排名转换为异方差高斯目标,使高斯过程代理模型与标准采集函数可直接使用,无需显式度量分数。我们在合成基准函数上评估了QS-BO,包括一维和二维非线性函数及Branin函数,并与随机搜索进行对比。结果表明,QS-BO始终取得更低的目标值,且运行间稳定性更强。统计检验进一步确认,其在1%显著性水平下显著优于随机搜索。这些发现确立了QS-BO作为贝叶斯优化在仅能获取排名反馈场景下的实用有效扩展,具有在偏好学习、推荐系统及人机协同优化中应用的潜力。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Bayesian Optimization (BO) is widely used for optimizing expensive black-box functions, particularly in hyperparameter tuning. However, standard BO assumes access to precise objective values, which may be unavailable, noisy, or unreliable in real-world settings where only relative or rank-based feedback can be obtained. In this study, we propose Quantile-Scaled Bayesian Optimization (QS-BO), a principled rank-based optimization framework. QS-BO converts ranks into heteroscedastic Gaussian targets through a quantile-scaling pipeline, enabling the use of Gaussian process surrogates and standard acquisition functions without requiring explicit metric scores. We evaluate QS-BO on synthetic benchmark functions, including one- and two-dimensional nonlinear functions and the Branin function, and compare its performance against Random Search. Results demonstrate that QS-BO consistently achieves lower objective values and exhibits greater stability across runs. Statistical tests further confirm that QS-BO significantly outperforms Random Search at the 1\% significance level. These findings establish QS-BO as a practical and effective extension of Bayesian Optimization for rank-only feedback, with promising applications in preference learning, recommendation, and human-in-the-loop optimization where absolute metric values are unavailable or unreliable.
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