Tsetlin Machine for Solving Contextual Bandit Problems

Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 35 (NeurIPS 2022) Main Conference Track

Bibtex Paper Supplemental

Authors

Raihan Seraj, Jivitesh Sharma, Ole-Christoffer Granmo

Abstract

This paper introduces an interpretable contextual bandit algorithm using Tsetlin Machines, which solves complex pattern recognition tasks using propositional (Boolean) logic. The proposed bandit learning algorithm relies on straightforward bit manipulation, thus simplifying computation and interpretation. We then present a mechanism for performing Thompson sampling with Tsetlin Machine, given its non-parametric nature. Our empirical analysis shows that Tsetlin Machine as a base contextual bandit learner outperforms other popular base learners on eight out of nine datasets. We further analyze the interpretability of our learner, investigating how arms are selected based on propositional expressions that model the context.