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arXiv · 2602.20706

Online Algorithms with Unreliable Guidance

Julien Dallot·Yuval Emek·Yuval Gil·Maciej Pacut·Stefan Schmid
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Abstract

This paper introduces online algorithms with unreliable guidance (OAG), a model for ML-augmented online decision-making that cleanly separates the predictive and algorithmic components, thus offering a single, well-defined analysis framework that depends only on the problem at hand. Formulated through the lens of request-answer games, the OAG model brings multiple concepts (predictions from the answer space, guide, anytime competitiveness) which enable learning-augmented algorithms to be analyzed independently of predictor-specific choices - such as prediction semantics, error functions, or probing strategies - that would otherwise restrict the algorithm's generality and applicability. The clean framework of the OAG model allows to build the first generic compiler, the drop-or-trust-blindly (DTB) compiler, that turns almost any standard, prediction-free online algorithm into a learning-augmented one. Although simple, we show that the DTB compiler produces new learning-augmented algorithms with strong consistency-robustness guarantees for three classic online problems: we achieve new trade-offs for bipartite matching with adversarial arrival order, and obtain optimal solutions for caching and uniform metrical task systems.

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Julien Dallot, Yuval Emek, Yuval Gil, Maciej Pacut, Stefan Schmid. 2026-02-24. Online Algorithms with Unreliable Guidance. https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20706

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