While recent progress in deep reinforcement learning has enabled robots to learn complex behaviors, tasks with long horizons and sparse rewards remain an ongoing challenge. In this work, we propose an effective reward shaping method through predictive coding to tackle sparse reward problems. By learning predictive repr…
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48 results for “Reward prediction”
Self-supervised reward prediction improves RL in sparse reward settings.
problem Data efficiency and sparse reward signals in reinforcement learning.
method Learning a state representation for reward prediction and using it to shape rewards.
result Self-supervised reward prediction enhances RL algorithms in single-goal environments.
Method predicts future rewards from past actions in a linear Gaussian system.
problem Maximizing cumulative reward in a stochastic multi-armed bandit with linear Gaussian dynamics.
method Proposes a method using a modified Kalman filter to predict future rewards based on past rewards.
result Reward from any action can be used to predict another action's future reward.
Research predicts cryptocurrency staking rewards with high accuracy.
problem Predicting cryptocurrency staking rewards.
method Two predictive methodologies: sliding-window average and linear regression models.
result ETH staking rewards can be forecasted with RMSE within 0.7% and 1.1% of the mean value for 1-day and 7-day look-aheads respectively.
Reinforcement learning algorithms rely on carefully engineering environment rewards that are extrinsic to the agent. However, annotating each environment with hand-designed, dense rewards is not scalable, motivating the need for developing reward functions that are intrinsic to the agent. Curiosity is a type of intrins…
This study proposes hidden state curiosity to enhance RL models' resilience against noise.
problem Curiosity traps in RL models distract agents from discovering novel experiences.
method Proposed hidden state curiosity based on the Free Energy Principle to reward agents for KL divergence between predictive priors and posteriors.
result Agents with hidden state curiosity are more resilient against curiosity traps compared to those with prediction error curiosity.
Curiosity-Critic improves world model training by focusing on cumulative prediction error.
problem Training world models with intrinsic rewards that consider cumulative prediction error.
method Curiosity-Critic uses a surrogate reward based on the difference between current and asymptotic prediction errors, estimated online by a co-trained critic.
result Curiosity-Critic outperforms other methods in training speed and final world model accuracy.
New method predicts and optimizes test-time scaling for LLMs.
problem Lack of principled guidance on scaling LLMs efficiently.
method Tail-guided search to predict and allocate compute.
result SLG Search achieves higher rewards with less compute.
TLRS improves predictive power of mined formulaic alpha factors.
problem Sparse rewards in RL for mining formulaic alpha factors.
method Trajectory-level Reward Shaping (TLRS) with reward centering.
result TLRS boosts predictive power by 9.29% over existing methods.
New algorithm uses machine learning to predict rewards for decision-making problems.
problem Sequential decision-making under uncertainty with scarce online data.
method Machine Learning-Assisted Upper Confidence Bound (MLA-UCB) algorithm.
result Proves to improve cumulative regret even with biased surrogate rewards.
Model-based reinforcement learning methods typically learn models for high-dimensional state spaces by aiming to reconstruct and predict the original observations. However, drawing inspiration from model-free reinforcement learning, we propose learning a latent dynamics model directly from rewards. In this work, we int…
The Artificial Prediction Market is a recent machine learning technique for multi-class classification, inspired from the financial markets. It involves a number of trained market participants that bet on the possible outcomes and are rewarded if they predict correctly. This paper generalizes the scope of the Artificia…
In structured output prediction tasks, labeling ground-truth training output is often expensive. However, for many tasks, even when the true output is unknown, we can evaluate predictions using a scalar reward function, which may be easily assembled from human knowledge or non-differentiable pipelines. But searching th…
Reinforcement learning is concerned with identifying reward-maximizing behaviour policies in environments that are initially unknown. State-of-the-art reinforcement learning approaches, such as deep Q-networks, are model-free and learn to act effectively across a wide range of environments such as Atari games, but requ…
This work presents a game-theoretic method for AVs that handles imperfect communication and individual rewards.
problem Real-time, imperfect communication and individual rewards in multi-agent interactions.
method Game-theoretic approach that allows for imperfect communication and individual rewards.
result More realistic assumptions lead to better reward inference and prediction of future actions.
A major challenge in reinforcement learning is exploration, when local dithering methods such as epsilon-greedy sampling are insufficient to solve a given task. Many recent methods have proposed to intrinsically motivate an agent to seek novel states, driving the agent to discover improved reward. However, while state-…
Reinforcement learning methods require careful design involving a reward function to obtain the desired action policy for a given task. In the absence of hand-crafted reward functions, prior work on the topic has proposed several methods for reward estimation by using expert state trajectories and action pairs. However…
Improves reward bounds for prediction with expert advice using abstention.
problem Prediction with expert advice under bandit feedback with abstention.
method CBA algorithm exploiting abstention to improve reward bounds.
result Achieved significant improvement in reward bounds for general confidence-rated predictors.
Paper simplifies complex AI exploration by predicting future rewards.
problem Training machines to optimally gather complex information.
method Developed a denser reward structure using cross-value to decouple exploration and exploitation.
result Demonstrated successful learning of challenging tasks without shaping or bonuses.
Using State Predictions for Value Regularization in Curiosity Driven Deep Reinforcement Learningcs.LG
Learning in sparse reward settings remains a challenge in Reinforcement Learning, which is often addressed by using intrinsic rewards. One promising strategy is inspired by human curiosity, requiring the agent to learn to predict the future. In this paper a curiosity-driven agent is extended to use these predictions di…
PFN-TS uses Thompson sampling with PFNs to improve contextual bandit performance.
problem Improving contextual bandit performance using Thompson sampling with prior-data fitted networks.
method PFN-TS converts PFN posterior predictives into mean-reward samples using a subsampled predictive central limit theorem.
result PFN-TS achieves the best average rank across nonlinear synthetic and OpenML classification-to-bandit benchmarks.
Develops a new model to predict training dynamics of large language models.
problem Lack of mechanistic understanding of training dynamics in large language models.
method A first-principles reduced-order model of training dynamics, predicting group-size invariance and stability thresholds.
result Closed-form model predicts training dynamics with high accuracy and provides new diagnostics.
To solve complex real-world problems with reinforcement learning, we cannot rely on manually specified reward functions. Instead, we can have humans communicate an objective to the agent directly. In this work, we combine two approaches to learning from human feedback: expert demonstrations and trajectory preferences. …
A new method resolves non-identifiability in reward modeling using anchor labels.
problem Non-identifiability in reward modeling from pairwise preferences alone.
method Anchor-guided Variance-aware Reward Modeling (AVRM) framework.
result AVRM resolves non-identifiability and improves reward modeling performance.
Predictive Banditscs.LG
New predictive bandit model with noise for better decision making.
problem Optimizing decisions with limited information and noise.
method Introduced predictive bandits, derived regret bounds, and developed algorithms.
result Developed algorithms matching theoretical regret bounds.
The paper explores a Multi-Objective RL approach for trading that generalizes reward functions.
problem Improving performance in single-asset trading through adaptive reward functions.
method Developed a Multi-Objective Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithm to generalize reward functions and discount factors.
result The Multi-Objective algorithm demonstrates increased predictive stability and better performance in sparse reward scenarios.
Learning about many things can provide numerous benefits to a reinforcement learning system. For example, learning many auxiliary value functions, in addition to optimizing the environmental reward, appears to improve both exploration and representation learning. The question we tackle in this paper is how to sculpt th…
Dealing with sparse rewards is a longstanding challenge in reinforcement learning. The recent use of hindsight methods have achieved success on a variety of sparse-reward tasks, but they fail on complex tasks such as stacking multiple blocks with a robot arm in simulation. Curiosity-driven exploration using the predict…
New algorithm optimizes for long-term user satisfaction in delayed reward settings.
problem Optimizing for long-term user satisfaction in delayed reward settings.
method Developed a predictive model of delayed rewards and a bandit algorithm that combines rewards and surrogate outcomes.
result Our algorithm significantly outperforms methods that optimize for short-term proxies or rely solely on delayed rewards.
Value functions are crucial for model-free Reinforcement Learning (RL) to obtain a policy implicitly or guide the policy updates. Value estimation heavily depends on the stochasticity of environmental dynamics and the quality of reward signals. In this paper, we propose a two-step understanding of value estimation from…
EPIC quantifies reward differences without policy optimization.
problem Distinguishing reward function quality from policy optimization issues.
method EPIC distance to compare reward functions directly.
result EPIC bounds policy training success and regret.
EOI enhances individuality in multi-agent systems.
problem Improving multi-agent cooperation through individuality.
method A probabilistic classifier that predicts agent identity based on observations, with intrinsic rewards and regularizers.
result EOI significantly outperforms existing methods in multi-agent cooperative scenarios.
Study scaling laws of reward model overoptimization in reinforcement learning.
problem Reward model overoptimization hinders true performance in reinforcement learning.
method Synthetic setup with fixed gold reward model; optimization using RL or best-of- sampling; analysis of scaling laws.
result Scaling laws of reward model overoptimization differ based on optimization method and scale smoothly with model parameters.
Agents cooperate to make decisions in multi-armed bandits over a graph.
problem Optimizing decisions in multi-agent multi-armed bandits with shared information.
method Designs consensus-based distributed estimation and cooperative algorithms for group decision-making.
result Achieves group performance close to centralized fusion center.
In many real-world scenarios, rewards extrinsic to the agent are extremely sparse, or absent altogether. In such cases, curiosity can serve as an intrinsic reward signal to enable the agent to explore its environment and learn skills that might be useful later in its life. We formulate curiosity as the error in an agen…
Kernel-based function approximation improves reinforcement learning performance.
problem Average reward reinforcement learning in infinite horizon settings.
method Optimistic algorithm based on kernel ridge regression.
result No-regret performance guarantees and confidence intervals for kernel-based predictions.
We seek to align agent behavior with a user's objectives in a reinforcement learning setting with unknown dynamics, an unknown reward function, and unknown unsafe states. The user knows the rewards and unsafe states, but querying the user is expensive. To address this challenge, we propose an algorithm that safely and …
AutoDIME automates design of multi-agent environments for RL.
problem Designing multi-agent environments for reinforcement learning is challenging.
method Developed intrinsic teacher rewards for multi-agent settings and evaluated them in various tasks.
result Value disagreement was found to be most consistent and effective across tasks.
Imitation by observation is an approach for learning from expert demonstrations that lack action information, such as videos. Recent approaches to this problem can be placed into two broad categories: training dynamics models that aim to predict the actions taken between states, and learning rewards or features for com…
New method uses hindsight to make exploration robust in stochastic environments.
problem Exploration in sparse-reward or reward-free environments, especially in stochastic settings.
method Learn representations of the future that capture unpredictable aspects, using them to predict and reward only the predictable parts of the world.
result Improves exploration in Atari games and Montezuma's Revenge, robust to stochasticity.
Machine learning is often used in competitive scenarios: Participants learn and fit static models, and those models compete in a shared platform. The common assumption is that in order to win a competition one has to have the best predictive model, i.e., the model with the smallest out-sample error. Is that necessarily…
Exploration efficiency is a challenging problem in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), as the policy learned by confederate MARL depends on the collaborative approach among multiple agents. Another important problem is the less informative reward restricts the learning speed of MARL compared with the informative…
Reinforcement learning algorithms struggle when the reward signal is very sparse. In these cases, naive random exploration methods essentially rely on a random walk to stumble onto a rewarding state. Recent works utilize intrinsic motivation to guide the exploration via generative models, predictive forward models, or …
The study analyzes how neural reward models learn features for policy optimization in a Gaussian single-index model.
problem Reward modeling in policy optimization and its impact on downstream value.
method Two-stage neural reward model: first learns hidden direction, then fits readout layer.
result For any feature-learning temperature above a dimension-free threshold, a constant fraction of neurons recover the hidden direction.
STAR framework reduces OPE variance by distilling complex problems into discrete ARPs.
problem High variance and bias in off-policy evaluation methods.
method STAR framework that includes various OPE estimators and leverages state abstraction.
result Predictions from ARPs estimated from off-policy data are asymptotically correct.
Softmax Q-Distribution Estimation for Structured Prediction: A Theoretical Interpretation for RAMLcs.LG
Reward augmented maximum likelihood (RAML), a simple and effective learning framework to directly optimize towards the reward function in structured prediction tasks, has led to a number of impressive empirical successes. RAML incorporates task-specific reward by performing maximum-likelihood updates on candidate outpu…
In many environments only a tiny subset of all states yield high reward. In these cases, few of the interactions with the environment provide a relevant learning signal. Hence, we may want to preferentially train on those high-reward states and the probable trajectories leading to them. To this end, we advocate for the…
New algorithm optimizes long-term user satisfaction in recommendation systems.
problem Optimizing long-term user satisfaction in recommendation systems with delayed rewards.
method Developed a predictive model of delayed rewards and a bandit algorithm that balances exploration and exploitation.
result Our approach results in substantially better performance compared to short-term or delayed optimization.