Papers › The Voice of Optimization
The Voice of Optimization
Dimitris Bertsimas, Bartolomeo Stellato
The archive published only this paper's code-link row. Authors, date and abstract are from arXiv's metadata (CC0), read from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12 where its title matched the archive's; the title is the archive's.
We introduce the idea that using optimal classification trees (OCTs) and optimal classification trees with-hyperplanes (OCT-Hs), interpretable machine learning algorithms developed by Bertsimas and Dunn [2017, 2018], we are able to obtain insight on the strategy behind the optimal solution in continuous and mixed-integer convex optimization problem as a function of key parameters that affect the problem. In this way, optimization is not a black box anymore. Instead, we redefine optimization as a multiclass classification problem where the predictor gives insights on the logic behind the optimal solution. In other words, OCTs and OCT-Hs give optimization a voice. We show on several realistic examples that the accuracy behind our method is in the 90%-100% range, while even when the predictions are not correct, the degree of suboptimality or infeasibility is very low. We compare optimal strategy predictions of OCTs and OCT-Hs and feedforward neural networks (NNs) and conclude that the performance of OCT-Hs and NNs is comparable. OCTs are somewhat weaker but often competitive. Therefore, our approach provides a novel insightful understanding of optimal strategies to solve a broad class of continuous and mixed-integer optimization problems.
In Syntology Open this paper in Syntology's Atlas, the map of the papers in Syntology's graph and their citations.
Code
Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.
Code Syntology ran Syntology
Not run by Syntology. Nothing on this page verifies that the listed code works.
Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28
No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.
Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections