Learning Submodular Sequencing from Samples

This paper addresses the problem of sequential submodular maximization: selecting and ranking items in a sequence to optimize some composite submodular function. In contrast to most of the previous works, which assume complete knowledge of the utility function, we assume that we are given only a set of samples. Each sample includes a random sequence of items and its associated utility. We present an algorithm that, given polynomially many samples drawn from a two-stage uniform distribution, achieves an approximation ratio dependent on the curvature of individual submodular functions. Our results apply to a wide variety of real-world scenarios, such as ranking products in online retail platforms, where complete knowledge of the utility function is often impossible to obtain. Our algorithm gives an empirically useful solution in such contexts, thus proving that limited data can be of great use in sequencing tasks. From a technical perspective, our results extend prior work on “optimization from samples” by generalizing from optimizing a set function to a sequence-dependent function.