Optimal Top-$k$ Identification from Pairwise Comparisons

We study the active learning problem of fixed-confidence top-$k$ identification from noisy pairwise comparisons. In this problem, an algorithm sequentially chooses pairs of items to compare, observes the outcomes, and stops when it can return the set of top-$k$ items with error probability at most $\delta$. The objective is to design such a $\delta$-correct procedure that minimizes the expected number of comparisons (the sample complexity). This problem falls within the broader literature on fixed-confidence pure exploration in bandit models, where a common target is asymptotic optimality: the algorithm’s expected sample complexity matches the information theoretic lower bound as $\delta \to 0$. Asymptotically optimal procedures have been developed for a range of fixed-confidence pure-exploration problems, however to the best of our knowledge, for top-$1$, or more generally top-$k$ identification from pairwise comparisons under latent utility models an asymptotically optimal algorithm has not been established. In this setting, we develop such an algorithm. We characterize the structure of the lower bound and formulate it as a saddle-point problem. This structure enables a computationally efficient primal–dual procedure that learns the asymptotically optimal comparison allocation online. We then construct an adaptive comparison-allocation algorithm that tracks the allocation learned by the primal–dual procedure and prove it is asymptotically optimal.