Finding Engaging Media with Initialized Explore-Exploit

A computer-readable storage medium persistently storing a program, wherein the program, when executed, instructs a processor to perform the following operations:

• create a first plurality of probability distributions, wherein each of these probability distributions is generated by inputting a quantitative description of one or more features associated with an image into a regression model that outputs a probability distribution for a measure of engagingness for the image and wherein each of the images is conceptually related to the other images;
• use the first plurality of probability distributions to initialize a multi-armed bandit model that outputs a serving scheme for each of the images;
• and
• serve a plurality of the images on a web page displaying search results, based at least in part on the serving scheme

A method, comprising the operations of:

• creating a first plurality of probability distributions, wherein each of these probability distributions is generated by inputting a quantitative description of one or more features associated with a video into a regression model that outputs a probability distribution for a measure of engagingness for the video and wherein each of the videos are conceptually related;
• using the first plurality of probability distributions to initialize a multi-armed bandit model that outputs a serving scheme for each of the videos;
• and
• serving a plurality of the videos on a web page displaying search results, based at least in part on the serving scheme, wherein each of the operations is executed by one or more processors.