Consistency-Robustness Tradeoffs for Strategyproof Scheduling with Predictions

Abstract

We study strategyproof scheduling on \(n\) unrelated machines with predictions. Each machine is controlled by an agent with privately known processing times, while the mechanism receives a public prediction of the processing-time matrix before the agents report. The objective is to minimize the makespan subject to strategyproofness. We measure performance by consistency, the approximation guarantee for correct predictions, and robustness, the worst-case guarantee for arbitrary predictions. We introduce \textsc{EdgeSkip}, a deterministic strategyproof member of the class of job-wise weighted mechanisms. Such mechanisms allocate each job independently using prediction-dependent weights. Using a polynomial-time \(2\)-approximate reference schedule computed from the prediction and a standard tradeoff parameter, \textsc{EdgeSkip} is \(4\)-consistent and \((2n-2)\)-robust, improving on the \((6,2n)\) guarantee of Balkanski, Gkatzelis, and Tan. Without computational restrictions, \textsc{EdgeSkip} with an optimal reference schedule is \(C\)-consistent and \(\max\{n,(n-1)C/(C-1)\}\)-robust for every \(C>1\). We prove a matching information-theoretic lower bound for all job-wise weighted mechanisms, thereby determining the exact consistency--robustness tradeoff for this class. For arbitrary deterministic strategyproof mechanisms, we establish the robustness lower bound \(\max\{n,C/(C-1)\}\) for every \(C>1\). We also study an error-tolerant variant and improve upon prior guarantees. Experiments demonstrate that our mechanisms achieve good empirical performance.