PPG separates policy and value function training phases for better reinforcement learning efficiency.
problem Challenges in traditional reinforcement learning methods for policy and value function optimization.
method Integrates Phasic Policy Gradient framework that splits policy and value function training into distinct phases.
result Significantly improves sample efficiency on Procgen Benchmark compared to PPO.
We introduce Procgen Benchmark, a suite of 16 procedurally generated game-like environments designed to benchmark both sample efficiency and generalization in reinforcement learning. We believe that the community will benefit from increased access to high quality training environments, and we provide detailed experimen…
RL struggles with generalization due to implicit partial observability.
problem Generalization in RL is difficult due to implicit partial observability.
method Re-cast RL problem as solving epistemic POMDPs and propose ensemble-based techniques.
result Simple ensemble-based technique achieves significant generalization gains.
Mixreg improves RL generalization by mixing diverse training environments.
problem Overfitting in RL agents trained in limited environments.
method Trains on a mixture of diverse observations and imposes linearity constraints.
result Mixreg outperforms baselines on unseen testing environments.
RAD enhances RL algorithms with data augmentations.
problem Challenges in RL learning from visual observations.
method RAD is a simple plug-and-play module for RL algorithms.
result RAD improves data-efficiency and final performance.
Deep RL agents suffer from transient non-stationarity, which ITER mitigates.
problem Transient non-stationarity in deep RL agents affects generalization.
method Iterated Relearning (ITER) transfers knowledge between networks to reduce non-stationarity.
result ITER improves deep RL agents' performance on generalization benchmarks.
Paper improves reinforcement learning in multi-scene tasks.
problem Reducing sample variance in multi-scene reinforcement learning.
method Sparse dynamic value estimation using Gaussian mixture models.
result Significant improvements in reward scores and navigation efficiency.
Deep RL evaluation underestimates uncertainty, leading to misleading conclusions.
problem Statistical uncertainty in deep RL performance evaluations is underestimated, leading to misleading conclusions.
method Advocates for reporting interval estimates of aggregate performance and proposes performance profiles to account for variability.
result Substantial discrepancies in prior performance comparisons are revealed, highlighting the need for more rigorous evaluation methods.
A new method for estimating joint value functions in multi-scene reinforcement learning.
problem High variance in samples for policy gradient computations in multi-scene environments.
method Sparse attention mechanism over multiple value function hypotheses to approximate the true joint value function.
result Significant improvements in reward scores and enhanced navigation efficiency across OpenAI ProcGen environments.
RADIAL-RL improves deep RL agents' robustness against adversarial attacks.
problem Vulnerability of deep reinforcement learning agents to small adversarial perturbations.
method RADIAL-RL, a principled framework for training robust reinforcement learning agents.
result RADIAL-RL-trained agents consistently outperform prior methods in robustness tests.
WAPPO optimizes feature distributions for better visual transfer in RL.
problem Improving visual transfer in reinforcement learning.
method WAPPO uses Wasserstein Confusion to minimize feature distribution distance.
result WAPPO outperforms previous methods in visual transfer across different environments.
Paper tackles offline RL with limited target samples using domain adaptation.
problem Limited samples in target dataset degrade offline RL performance.
method Proposes a framework to balance target and source datasets with theoretical guarantees.
result Establishes performance bounds and optimal weight for offline RL.
Enhances RL agents with predictive internal representations.
problem Improving model-free reinforcement learning agents.
method Introduces Deep InfoMax (DIM) objective to train predictive internal representations.
result Successfully learned predictive representations in synthetic settings.
A new method uses a frozen language model to improve sample efficiency in reinforcement learning.
problem Improving sample efficiency in reinforcement learning with partially observable environments.
method FROZEN Hopfield network and HELM (History Embedding Language Model) method.
result HELM achieves new state-of-the-art results on Minigrid and Procgen environments.
Improves reinforcement learning agent's scene-specific value function.
problem High variance in samples for policy gradient computations in multi-scene environments.
method Proposes dynamic value estimation (DVE) for multiple MDPs, clustering value functions across scenes.
result Lower sample variance and more accurate scene-specific value function estimates.
Equivariant MuZero improves generalization in procedurally generated environments.
problem Leveraging world models for robust generalization in real-world scenarios.
method Incorporates symmetries of the environment into MuZero's world-model architecture, making MuZero equivariant to certain groups of transformations.
result Improves data efficiency and generalization capabilities, demonstrated on procedurally generated MiniPacman and Chaser.
YAHPO Gym introduces a new benchmark for evaluating hyperparameter optimization methods.
problem Evaluating and comparing hyperparameter optimization methods on well-curated benchmark suites.
method Surrogate-based benchmark collection of 14 scenarios, each with multi-fidelity and multi-objective hyperparameter optimization problems.
result Surrogate-based benchmarks produce more faithful results than tabular benchmarks.
Study constructs a Japanese financial LLM benchmark.
problem Need for domain-specific benchmarks for LLMs.
method Constructed a benchmark with multiple Japanese and financial domain tasks.
result GPT-4 outperforms other models in the benchmark.
A new sparse benchmark metabench identifies key abilities from large benchmarks.
problem Redundancy and compression in existing benchmarks.
method Data from 5000+ LLMs to identify most informative items, distilling a sparse benchmark.
result Sparse benchmark metabench captures underlying abilities with high accuracy.
Machine learning research depends on objectively interpretable, comparable, and reproducible algorithm benchmarks. We advocate the use of curated, comprehensive suites of machine learning tasks to standardize the setup, execution, and reporting of benchmarks. We enable this through software tools that help to create an…
This article provides a comprehensive study of different ways to make speed benchmarks of gradient boosted decision trees algorithm. We show main problems of several straight forward ways to make benchmarks, explain, why a speed benchmarking is a challenging task and provide a set of reasonable requirements for a bench…
Study optimizes portfolio to minimize relative drawdown duration, penalizing unfavorable performance states.
problem Minimizing relative drawdown duration in portfolio optimization relative to a benchmark.
method Introduces a benchmark-relative drawdown-duration criterion penalizing unfavorable performance states. Uses a one-dimensional Markovian representation and Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation.
result Derives explicit projection-based characterization of the optimal feedback control and identifies geometric settings for unique strong solutions.
Deployment-complete benchmarking assesses if evidence leads to consistent deployment actions.
problem Lack of clear evidence leading to consistent deployment actions.
method Introduces deployment-complete benchmarking to test if benchmark evidence determines deployment actions.
result Benchmark evidence must be complete for a claim to lead to a consistent deployment action.
We give an explicit formulaic algorithm and source code for building long-only benchmark portfolios and then using these benchmarks in long-only market outperformance strategies. The benchmarks (or the corresponding betas) do not involve any principal components, nor do they require iterations. Instead, we use a multif…
Tiny benchmarks reduce LLM evaluation costs by using fewer examples.
problem Expensive evaluation of LLMs with tens of thousands of examples.
method Developed evaluation tools and tiny versions of popular benchmarks.
result Accurately estimate LLM performance with just 100 curated examples.
The past few years have seen a surge of applying Deep Learning (DL) models for a wide array of tasks such as image classification, object detection, machine translation, etc. While DL models provide an opportunity to solve otherwise intractable tasks, their adoption relies on them being optimized to meet latency and re…
Benchmark for DL inference on embedded HWAs, focusing on autonomous driving.
problem Lack of comprehensive benchmarks for DL hardware.
method Developed a benchmark for inference on embedded HWAs, focusing on autonomous driving. Proposed new granularity, benchmark procedures, and performance indicators.
result Identifies mismatches between HWAs and DL models.
The optimization of algorithm (hyper-)parameters is crucial for achieving peak performance across a wide range of domains, ranging from deep neural networks to solvers for hard combinatorial problems. The resulting algorithm configuration (AC) problem has attracted much attention from the machine learning community. Ho…
Optimal benchmark design varies based on costs in financial manipulation.
problem Manipulation of price benchmarks in finance.
method Analyzes empirical pattern and cost structures to determine optimal benchmark design.
result The optimal benchmark depends on the relative sizes of fixed and variable costs.
Generates synthetic data for benchmarking unsupervised outlier detection.
problem Difficulty in benchmarking unsupervised outlier detection due to rare and varied outliers in real data.
method Proposes a generic process to generate synthetic data with insightful characteristics.
result Demonstrates practicality of the generic process through a benchmark with state-of-the-art detection methods.
Paper introduces benchmark-neutral pricing for long-term contracts.
problem High prices of long-term contracts under risk-neutral pricing.
method Uses growth optimal portfolio as numeraire and new pricing measure.
result Identifies minimal possible prices for contingent claims.
In this report, we present a new reinforcement learning (RL) benchmark based on the Sonic the Hedgehog (TM) video game franchise. This benchmark is intended to measure the performance of transfer learning and few-shot learning algorithms in the RL domain. We also present and evaluate some baseline algorithms on the new…
Fidel-TS creates a new benchmark for time series forecasting models.
problem Lack of high-quality benchmarks for time series forecasting models.
method Formalized high-fidelity benchmark principles, including data sourcing integrity, leak-free design, and structural clarity. Created Fidel-TS, a new large-scale benchmark.
result Demonstrated the limitations of prior benchmarks and potential discrepancies in model evaluation.
New framework assesses and benchmarks ML methods for multivariate time series.
problem Benchmarking and explaining performance of machine learning methods.
method Proposes a new framework with systematized performance-explainability characteristics.
result Illustrates application to multivariate time series classifiers.
Study proposes new methods to calculate probabilistic benchmarks in noisy data.
problem Identifying opportunities for improvement in comparable units with noisy data.
method 2-step methodology involving undersampling and relevance vector machine.
result Higher discrimination power achieved with macro-economic environment variables.
We solve the multi-criteria benchmarking problem by formalizing it as a social choice problem and identifying conditions for meaningful rankings.
problem Aggregating multiple metrics into a single ranking for models in benchmarking problems.
method Formalizing multi-criteria benchmarking as a social choice problem and identifying sufficient conditions for meaningful rankings.
result We prove that meaningful multi-criteria benchmarking becomes possible under certain preference conditions (single-peaked, group-separable, distance-restricted).
We study the pricing and hedging of derivatives in incomplete financial markets by considering the local risk-minimization method in the context of the benchmark approach, which will be called benchmarked local risk-minimization. We show that the proposed benchmarked local risk-minimization allows to handle under extre…
The paper shows that benchmark-neutral pricing minimizes option prices.
problem Pricing extreme-maturity European put options on diversified indices.
method Benchmark-neutral pricing applied to a drifted time-transformed squared Bessel process.
result Benchmark-neutral price is the minimal possible price, risk-neutral price is more expensive.
NAS-Bench-Suite simplifies NAS evaluation across diverse tasks.
problem Limited and inconsistent NAS benchmarks hinder research reproducibility.
method Developed a comprehensive, extensible NAS benchmark suite.
result Many NAS conclusions do not generalize across different benchmarks.
Wiki-CS dataset benchmarks Graph Neural Networks using Wikipedia articles.
problem Benchmarking Graph Neural Networks on a new domain with structural differences.
method Derived from Wikipedia, nodes represent Computer Science articles, edges from hyperlinks, 10 classes for different branches, evaluated semi-supervised node classification and link prediction.
result Graph Neural Networks perform well on Wiki-CS, showing structural differences from earlier benchmarks.
In this paper we establish rigorous benchmarks for image classifier robustness. Our first benchmark, ImageNet-C, standardizes and expands the corruption robustness topic, while showing which classifiers are preferable in safety-critical applications. Then we propose a new dataset called ImageNet-P which enables researc…
Benchmark study evaluates 8 clustering methods on 99 UCR time series datasets.
problem Assessing the performance of clustering methods on time series data.
method Examines 8 clustering methods across 3 categories and 3 distance measures on 99 UCR datasets.
result Provides a comprehensive dataset-level assessment of clustering methods.
BAT benchmark for autobidding tasks in RTB auctions.
problem Lack of comprehensive datasets and benchmarks for autobidding.
method Developed a benchmark for two auction formats, implemented robust baselines.
result Provides a framework for developing and refining autobidding algorithms.
Randomly guessing weights helps analyze RL benchmarks objectively.
problem Understanding the complexity of reinforcement learning benchmarks.
method Generate policy networks by randomly guessing their parameters, evaluate on benchmarks, and analyze results.
result Small untrained networks can provide a robust baseline for various RL tasks.
Paper proposes a new daily benchmark for post-GFC government bond CIP deviations.
problem Lack of a canonical daily benchmark for CIP deviations.
method Used G10 plus KRW currency-tenor panels to analyze three lagged public state variables.
result Three lagged public state variables deliver strong performance in daily regressions.
MLPerf, an emerging machine learning benchmark suite strives to cover a broad range of applications of machine learning. We present a study on its characteristics and how the MLPerf benchmarks differ from some of the previous deep learning benchmarks like DAWNBench and DeepBench. We find that application benchmarks suc…
Benchmarking recursive collapse claims with a new framework under false-positive control.
problem Evaluating recursive systems for failure patterns and warning claims.
method Developed Loopzero framework for testing recursive failures, specified claim boundaries in Lean, evaluated under FP constraint, and compared with standard detectors.
result No standard detectors or Loopzero's pre-registered quantile detector achieved the required operating point under the false-positive contract.
New meta-score EPP interprets model performance differences.
problem Lack of interpretable benchmarks for model performance.
method Elo-based Predictive Power (EPP) meta-score, logistic regression.
result EPP scores have probabilistic interpretation and can be compared between data sets.