Constraint-based Optimization and Utility Elicitation using the Minimax Decision Criterion
Craig Boutilier
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 3H5
email: cebly@cs.toronto.edu
Relu Patrascu
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 3H5
email: relu@cs.toronto.edu
Pascal Poupart
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON M5S 3H5
email: ppoupart@cs.toronto.edu
Dale Schuurmans
Department of Computing Science
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E8
email: dale@cs.ualberta.ca
Abstract
In many situations, a set of hard
constraints encodes the feasible configurations of some system or product over
which multiple users have distinct preferences. However, making suitable
decisions requires that the preferences of a specific user for different
configurations be articulated or elicited, something
generally acknowledged to
be onerous.We address two problems associated with preference elicitation:
computing a best feasible solution when the user s utilities are imprecisely
specified; and developing useful elicitation procedures that reduce utility
uncertainty, with minimal user interaction, to a point where (approximately)
optimal decisions can be made. Our main contributions are threefold. First, we
propose the use of minimax regret as a suitable decision criterion for decision
making in the presence of such utility function uncertainty. Second, we devise
several different procedures, all relying on mixed integer linear programs,
that can be used to compute minimax regret and regret-optimizing solutions
effectively. In particular, our methods exploit generalized additive structure
in a user s utility function to ensure tractable computation. Third, we propose
various elicitation methods that can be used to refine utility uncertainty in
such a way as to quickly (i.e., with as few questions as possible) reduce
minimax regret. Empirical study suggests that several of these methods are
quite successful in minimizing the number of user queries, while remaining
computationally practical so as to admit real-time user interaction.
To appear, Artificial Intelligence, 2006
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