Power of human-algorithm collaboration in solving combinatorial optimization problems

Abstract: Many combinatorial optimization problems are often considered intractable to solve exactly or by approximation. An example of such problem is maximum clique which -- under standard assumptions in complexity theory -- cannot be solved in sub-exponential time or be approximated within polynomial factor efficiently. We show that if a polynomial time algorithm can query informative Gaussian priors from an expert $poly(n)$ times, then a class of combinatorial optimization problems can be solved efficiently in expectation up to a multiplicative factor $\epsilon$ where $\epsilon$ is arbitrary constant. While our proposed methods are merely theoretical, they cast new light on how to approach solving these problems that have been usually considered intractable.