Abstract

We study how to utilize (possibly erroneous) predictions in a model for computing under uncertainty in which an algorithm can query unknown data. Our aim is to minimize the number of queries needed to solve the minimum spanning tree problem, a fundamental combinatorial optimization problem that has been central also to the research area of explorable uncertainty. For all integral γ ≥ 2, we present algorithms that are γ-robust and (1+1/γ)-consistent, meaning that they use at most γOPT queries if the predictions are arbitrarily wrong and at most (1+1/γ)OPT queries if the predictions are correct, where OPT is the optimal number of queries for the given instance. Moreover, we show that this trade-off is best possible. Furthermore, we argue that a suitably defined hop distance is a useful measure for the amount of prediction error and design algorithms with performance guarantees that degrade smoothly with the hop distance. We also show that the predictions are PAC-learnable in our model. Our results demonstrate that untrusted predictions can circumvent the known lower bound of 2, without any degradation of the worst-case ratio. To obtain our results, we provide new structural insights for the minimum spanning tree problem that might be useful in the context of query-based algorithms regardless of predictions. In particular, we generalize the concept of witness sets - the key to lower-bounding the optimum - by proposing novel global witness set structures and completely new ways of adaptively using those.

@InProceedings{erlebach_et_al:LIPIcs.ESA.2022.49,
  author =	{Erlebach, Thomas and de Lima, Murilo Santos and Megow, Nicole and Schl\"{o}ter, Jens},
  title =	{{Learning-Augmented Query Policies for Minimum Spanning Tree with Uncertainty}},
  booktitle =	{30th Annual European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA 2022)},
  pages =	{49:1--49:18},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-247-1},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2022},
  volume =	{244},
  editor =	{Chechik, Shiri and Navarro, Gonzalo and Rotenberg, Eva and Herman, Grzegorz},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2022/16987},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-169872},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ESA.2022.49},
  annote =	{Keywords: explorable uncertainty, queries, untrusted predictions}
}