Tight Sample Complexity Bounds for Best-Arm Identification Under Bounded Systematic Bias

arXiv cs.LG / 4/17/2026

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Key Points

  • The paper models node expansion in autonomous reasoning/embodied planning as a localized Best-Arm Identification (BAI) problem over dynamic frontiers, explicitly accounting for bounded systematic evaluation bias L in surrogate models such as LLMs.
  • It derives a tight additive sample-complexity bound of O((Δ−4L)^{-2}) by using an approach involving the inverse Lambert W function, showing that safe node elimination is possible only when the empirical reward gap exceeds 4L.
  • It provides a matching information-theoretic lower bound of Ω((Δ−2L)^{-2}), establishing the fundamental limits of biased search and confirming the structural tightness of the upper bound.
  • Experiments on both synthetic trees and complex reasoning tasks indicate that following this “local safety boundary” can preserve optimal trajectories while improving how samples are allocated efficiently.

Abstract

As search depth increases in autonomous reasoning and embodied planning, the candidate action space expands exponentially, heavily taxing computational budgets. While heuristic pruning is a common countermeasure, it operates without formal safety guarantees when surrogate models (like LLMs) exhibit systematic evaluation biases. This paper frames the node expansion process as a localized Best-Arm Identification (BAI) problem over dynamic frontiers, subject to a bounded systematic bias L. By inverting the Lambert W function, we establish an additive sample complexity of \mathcal{O}((\Delta-4L)^{-2}), which indicates that safe node elimination is only feasible when the empirical reward gap exceeds 4L. We complement this with an information-theoretic lower bound of \Omega((\Delta-2L)^{-2}) to confirm the structural limits of biased search. Subsequent evaluations on both synthetic trees and complex reasoning tasks demonstrate that adhering to this local safety boundary successfully preserves optimal trajectories while maximizing sample allocation efficiency.