Minimax and dynamic (in)consistency

post by Vanessa Kosoy (vanessa-kosoy) · 2016-12-11T10:42:08.000Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

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The asymptotic optimality theorem for minimax we proved previously was formulated in terms of the "optimal value" . Compared to the Bayesian case, has the strange property that its definition depends on rewards other than those received after observing . This is a direct consequence of the dynamic inconsistency of minimax. In an attempt to get around this, we show that the minimax decision rule is dynamically consistent in a certain special case and demonstrate that this special case can occur often for a natural class of models. However, this doesn't immediately solve the problem: doing so requires replacing the minimax decision rule by a stronger condition that ensures subgame perfection in some sense. The formalization of the latter idea is left for future posts.

Appendix A contains the proofs of all results.

##Notation

Given a topological space, will denote the space of Borel probability measures on . We regard it as a topological space using the weak topology. Given , is defined by . Given , stands for the total variation distance between and . We denote the set of non-empty convex compact subsets of .

Given a finite set, denotes the set of finite strings in alphabet , i.e. . denotes the set of infinite strings in alphabet . Given , is the length of string. Given , is the -th symbol in . Given , is the prefix of of length . Given , the notations , , and mean " is a proper prefix of ", " is a prefix of " and their negations. is the empty string and .

##Factorization

We recall the result of the previous post regarding subagents of minimax agents:

#Proposition 0

In general, is not a minimax policy for any natural model i.e. the minimax decision rule is not "dynamically consistent". However, if we assume a certain factorization condition, it is. Specifically, assume are compact Polish, is Borel measurable, and are continuous s.t.

Further assume that is Borel s.t. and are s.t. is the closure of the convex hull of .

#Proposition 1

Assume that . Then,

Moreover, define equipped with the product topology, define by

Define and define by

Finally, define by

Then, is a minimax policy for w.r.t. the utility function .

##Factorization everywhere

We now formulate a condition that ensures that factorizations happens "often" in a certain sense.

#Definition 1

Consider and . Define by

is said to factorize at when there are s.t. is the closure of the convex hull of .

Given , is said to factorize over when there are infinitely many s.t. factorizes at .

Given a time discount function , is said to factorize frequently over (w.r.t. ) when there is an increasing sequence s.t.

i. factorizes at for all .

ii. There is s.t. for all

For example, for geometric discount (, condition ii means that is bounded.

is said to factorize everywhere when

is said to factorize frequently everywhere (w.r.t. ) when


Note that any singleton factorizes frequently everywhere w.r.t. any time discount function. More generally, we can give the following explicit description of models that factorize everywhere:

#Construction

Consider some ( is considered to be a discrete space). Assume that for any , there is prefix-free s.t. any is supported on .

We define as the minimal set with the following properties:

i.

ii. If , and is s.t. , then .

We define as follows. iff for any , there is s.t. for any , if then

#Proposition 2

For any as above, and factorizes everywhere.


It is also easy to use the above construction to get that factorizes frequently everywhere w.r.t. given (for example, if we require that for every , is supported on strings of uniformly bounded length, will factorize frequently everywhere w.r.t. geometric discount; this condition on is sufficient but not necessary).

We now formulate the optimality condition that we would like to hold (but for which minimax is unfortunately insufficent). Consider again , and as before. Define to be normalized sum of rewards from time , i.e.

Define by

#Hypothesis

If satisfies the (yet unformulated) subgame perfection condition, we should have the following:

Assume factorizes everywhere. Then,

Moreover, if factorizes frequently everywhere, then

##Appendix A

#Proof of Proposition 1

Recalling that minimization over can be replaced by minimization over any set s.t. is the closure of its convex hull, and using Proposition 0, we have

Using the assumption , we get the desired result.

Now consider any . Define by . We have

For the special case , we get and therefore

Using the property of , it follows that

#Proposition A.0

In the setting of the Construction, consider any . Then:

#Proof of Proposition A.0

Given , we know there is s.t. the identity holds whenever . Summing these identities over y, we get

Since is prefix-free, for any we have . Also, obviously, . It follows that

Since implies , we conclude that for any , if then . This, together with the property of , gives the desired result.

#Proposition A.1

In the setting of the Construction, is convex.

#Proof of Proposition A.1

Consider and and define . Consider some , and let be as in the Construction. If , we can choose any to satisfy the desired condition. Therefore, we can assume . By Proposition A.0, there are s.t. for all :

Taking a convex linear combination of these equations, we get

Define by

is a convex linear combination of and , therefore . We get

Therefore, .

#Proposition A.2

In the setting of the Construction, is closed.

#Proof of Proposition A.2

Consider any sequence and s.t. for some . Consider some , and let be as in the Construction. By Proposition A.0, for any , there is s.t. for any :

Note that is not compact but is still Polish (since is such), and therefore is compact and Polish. Let be an increasing sequence s.t. for some . For any , is a continuous function, and therefore . For any , is also continuous, and therefore . Putting these together, we get

Therefore .

#Proposition A.3

In the setting of the Construction, consider any , and s.t. . Assume that . Then, .

#Proof of Proposition A.3

We prove by induction on . If , then obviously . If , then, by definition of , there is , and s.t. and . , therefore, by the induction hypothesis, . Assume to the contrary that . Then, since , . By the induction hypothesis, this implies . We got . It follows that , and therefore . However, and is prefix-free, which is a contradiction.

#Proposition A.4

In the setting of the Construction, is non-empty.

#Proof of Proposition A.4

Choose for each . Given any , define as the longest proper prefix of s.t. . Define recursively by

Consider any . For any , , therefore:

For any s.t. , and therefore . It follows that iff , and we get

Now, consider . For any , , therefore:

Again we get

It follows that there is s.t. for any , .

Consider any and s.t. . and by Proposition\ A.13, this implies . By definition of , it follows that . We get

and any s.t. is also in . is prefix-free, so iff . We get

Therefore, .

#Proposition A.5

Consider and let be defined as in Definition 1. Then, for any :

#Proof of Proposition A.5

Given any , . On the other hand, if are s.t. then and .

#Proposition A.6

Consider and let be defined as in Definition 1. Then, for any , if , then:

#Proof of Proposition A.6

Assume for some . For any , is either (if ) or (if ). Either way, . On the other hand, if are s.t. then either and or . Either way, .

Now, assume . For any , (since ). On the other hand, if are s.t. then (since ).

#Proposition A.7

In the setting of the Construction, consider some and define by . Assume that is s.t. . Then, .

#Proof of Proposition A.7

We prove by induction on . For , the proposition is obvious. Assume . , therefore for some , and s.t. . , therefore, by Proposition A.3, . Let be s.t. . , therefore and we can use the induction hypothesis to show that . , implying that .

#Proposition A.8

In the setting of the Construction, consider some and define by . Consider any . Then, .

#Proof of Proposition A.8

We prove by induction on . For , the proposition is obvious. Assume that . Then, there is some , and s.t. and . By the induction hypothesis, . Therefore, is also in .

#Proposition A.9

In the setting of the Construction, factorizes at for any .

#Proof of Proposition A.9

Fix . Let be as in Definition 1. Define by . We claim that .

Consider any , and denote . Consider some and corresponding.

Assume for some . By Proposition A.7, . Note that for any , implies . Let be as in Proposition A.0. For any , we have

Multiplying both sides by :

Using the definition of and Proposition A.5, we get

Combining, we get

Now, assume . Let be as in Proposition A.0. For any s.t. , we have

Using the definition of and Proposition A.6, we get

By Proposition A.3, . Therefore, we can use Proposition A.6 again to conclude

Combining, we get

We proved that . It remains to show that, conversely, .

Define as follows. If , choose arbitrary . If , define by

Consider any . By Proposition A.8, . By Proposition A.0, there is s.t. for any :

If , we can divide both sides by and get

It follows that, in either case, and

Denote . Consider any .

Assume for some . By Proposition A.5

Now, assume . By Proposition A.6

We conclude that .

#Proposition A.10

In the setting of the construction, consider any and s.t. for any , . Then, there are infinitely many s.t. .

#Proof of Proposition A.10

We prove by induction on that there are at least prefixes of in . For the claim is vacuously true. Consider any . By the induction hypothesis, there are s.t. for all . Without loss of generality, we can assume is s.t.

Indeed, if this condition is false we can make it true by adding more elements to . By Proposition A.0, there is s.t. for any

By the assumption on , there is s.t. . Denote . We get

The left hand side is positive since , therefore .\ It follows that .

#Proof of Proposition 2

By Propositions A.1, A.2 and A.4, . It remains to show that factorizes everywhere.

Consider any . Denote

We have

Therefore, and . By Proposition A.10, for any , there are infinitely many s.t. . By Proposition A.9, it follows that factorizes over . We get

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