UC Santa Barbara

Probabilistic Bisection Algorithm performs root finding based on knowledge acquired from noisy oracle responses. We consider the generalized PBA setting (G-PBA) where the statistical distribution of the oracle is unknown and location-dependent, so that model inference and Bayesian knowledge updating must be performed simultaneously. To this end, we propose to leverage the spatial structure of a typical oracle by constructing a statistical surrogate for the underlying logistic regression step. We investigate several non-parametric surrogates, including Binomial Gaussian Processes (B-GP), Polynomial, Kernel, and Spline Logistic Regression. In parallel, we develop sampling policies that adaptively balance learning the oracle distribution and learning the root. One of our proposals mimics active learning with B-GPs and provides a novel look-ahead predictive variance formula. The resulting gains of our Spatial PBA algorithm relative to earlier G-PBA models are illustrated with synthetic examples and a challenging stochastic root finding problem from Bermudan option pricing.