A survey on high-dimensional Gaussian process modeling with application to Bayesian optimization

Bayesian Optimization (BO), the application of Bayesian function approximation to finding optima of expensive functions, has exploded in popularity in recent years. In particular, much attention has been paid to improving its efficiency on problems with many parameters to optimize. This attention has trickled down to the workhorse of high-dimensional BO, high-dimensional Gaussian process regression, which is also of independent interest. The great flexibility that the Gaussian process prior implies is a boon when modeling complicated, low-dimensional surfaces but simply says too little when dimension grows too large. A variety of structural model assumptions have been tested to tame high dimensions, from variable selection and additive decomposition to low-dimensional embeddings and beyond. Most of these approaches in turn require modifications of the acquisition function optimization strategy as well. Here, we review the defining structural model assumptions and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of these approaches in practice.