Interactive Submodular Set Cover

We introduce a natural generalization of submodular set cover and exact active learning with a finite hypothesis class (query learning). We call this new problem interactive submodular set cover. Applications include advertising in social networks with hidden information. We give an approximation guarantee for a novel greedy algorithm and give a hardness of approximation result which matches up to constant factors. We also discuss negative results for simpler approaches and present encouraging early experimental results.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ICML
• Authors: Andrew Guillory, Jeff Bilmes
• Keywords: Exact Active Learning, Finite Hypothesis Class, ICML 2010, Machine Learning, Submodular Set Cover