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Track A: Algorithms, Complexity and Games
Learning Multinomial Logits in O(n log n) Time

Authors: Flavio Chierichetti, Mirko Giacchini, Ravi Kumar, Silvio Lattanzi, Alessandro Panconesi, Erasmo Tani, and Andrew Tomkins

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 374, 53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026)


Abstract
A Multinomial Logit (MNL) model is composed of a finite universe of items [n] = {1,…,n}, each assigned a positive weight. A query specifies an admissible subset - called a slate - and the model chooses one item from that slate with probability proportional to its weight. This query model is also known as the Plackett-Luce model or conditional sampling oracle in the literature. Although MNLs have been studied extensively, a basic computational question remains open: given query access to slates, how efficiently can we learn weights so that, for every slate, the induced choice distribution is within total variation distance ε of the ground truth? This question is central to MNL learning and has direct implications for modern recommender system interfaces. We provide two algorithms for this task, one with adaptive queries and one with non‑adaptive queries. Each algorithm outputs an MNL M̂ that induces, for each slate S, a distribution M̂_S on S that is within ε total variation distance of the true distribution. Our adaptive algorithm makes O(n/ε³ log n) queries, while our non-adaptive algorithm makes O(n²/ε³ log n log(n/ε)) queries. Both algorithms query only slates of size two and run in time proportional to their query complexity. We complement these upper bounds with lower bounds of Ω(n/ε² log n) for adaptive queries and Ω(n²/ε² log n) for non‑adaptive queries, thus proving that our adaptive algorithm is optimal in its dependence on the support size n, while the non-adaptive one is tight within a log n factor.

Cite as

Flavio Chierichetti, Mirko Giacchini, Ravi Kumar, Silvio Lattanzi, Alessandro Panconesi, Erasmo Tani, and Andrew Tomkins. Learning Multinomial Logits in O(n log n) Time. In 53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 374, pp. 63:1-63:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)


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@InProceedings{chierichetti_et_al:LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.63,
  author =	{Chierichetti, Flavio and Giacchini, Mirko and Kumar, Ravi and Lattanzi, Silvio and Panconesi, Alessandro and Tani, Erasmo and Tomkins, Andrew},
  title =	{{Learning Multinomial Logits in O(n log n) Time}},
  booktitle =	{53rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP 2026)},
  pages =	{63:1--63:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-428-4},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{374},
  editor =	{Bhattacharya, Sayan and Nanongkai, Danupon and Benedikt, Michael and Puppis, Gabriele},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.63},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-264526},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ICALP.2026.63},
  annote =	{Keywords: Multinomial Logits, Conditional Samples, Discrete Choice Models, Recommender Systems}
}
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