Online Correlation Clustering: Simultaneously Optimizing All $\ell_p$-norms

Abstract

The $\ell_p$-norm objectives for correlation clustering present a fundamental trade-off between minimizing total disagreements (the $\ell_1$-norm) and ensuring fairness to individual nodes (the $\ell_\infty$-norm). Surprisingly, in the offline setting it is possible to simultaneously approximate all $\ell_p$-norms with a single clustering. Can this powerful guarantee be achieved in an online setting? This paper provides the first affirmative answer. We present a single algorithm for the online-with-a-sample (AOS) model that, given a small constant fraction of the input as a sample, produces one clustering that is simultaneously $O(\log^4 n)$-competitive for all $\ell_p$-norms with high probability, $O(\log n)$-competitive for the $\ell_\infty$-norm with high probability, and $O(1)$-competitive for the $\ell_1$-norm in expectation. This work successfully translates the offline "all-norms" guarantee to the online world. Our setting is motivated by a new hardness result that demonstrates a fundamental separation between these objectives in the standard random-order (RO) online model. Namely, while the $\ell_1$-norm is trivially $O(1)$-approximable in the RO model, we prove that any algorithm in the RO model for the fairness-promoting $\ell_\infty$-norm must have a competitive ratio of at least $Ω(n^{1/3})$. This highlights the necessity of a different beyond-worst-case model. We complement our algorithm with lower bounds, showing our competitive ratios for the $\ell_1$- and $\ell_\infty$- norms are nearly tight in the AOS model.