Abstract MDPs enable strategic exploration and fast reward transfer in complex environments.
problem Challenging to learn accurate MDPs for high-dimensional states.
method Learn an abstract MDP over low-dimensional coarse states, using an abstraction function.
result Achieves superhuman performance on Pitfall! and higher reward with fewer samples.
Algorithm improves multi-armed bandit performance by transferring reward samples.
problem Sequential multi-armed bandit problem with changing reward distributions.
method UCB algorithm with reward sample transfer.
result Significant improvement in cumulative regret over standard UCB.
New algorithms improve multi-task bandit performance by transferring reward samples.
problem Sequential multi-task bandit problems with adjacent similar tasks.
method Two UCB-based algorithms that transfer reward samples between tasks.
result Transfer of reward samples reduces overall regret compared to no transfer.
This work improves transferability of rewards inferred from expert demonstrations.
problem Transferability of rewards inferred from expert demonstrations under limited access to the expert's policy.
method Proposed principal angles as a measure of similarity and dissimilarity between transition laws. Established sufficient conditions for transferability under limited access.
result Two key results on sufficient conditions for transferability to any and local changes in transition laws.
Paper improves AIRL by enhancing policy imitation and addressing reward recovery issues.
problem Inadequate policy imitation and limited transferable reward recovery in AIRL.
method Substituted built-in algorithm with SAC for policy updating and proposed PPO-AIRL + SAC hybrid framework.
result SAC improves policy imitation but hinders reward recovery; PPO-AIRL + SAC achieves satisfactory transfer effect.
New framework explains fast transfer of hyperparameters across model scales.
problem Understanding and optimizing hyperparameters for large-scale models.
method Developed a conceptual framework for HP transfer across scale, showing fast transfer is equivalent to useful transfer for compute-optimal grid search.
result Fast transfer of hyperparameters is equivalent to useful transfer for compute-optimal grid search, offering asymptotic computational advantage.
Paper proposes operator deep Q-learning for quick reward adaptation.
problem Standard RL can only handle one reward function and struggles with unseen rewards.
method Develops operator neural networks to map reward functions to value functions.
result Operator deep Q-learning can quickly adapt to new reward functions.
Develops HMRL for sparse reward RL problems, improving meta policy efficiency and transferability.
problem Difficulty in learning meta policies for sparse reward RL problems.
method Hyper-Meta RL framework with cross-environment meta state embedding and shaped meta reward.
result Improves meta policy generalization and efficiency for sparse reward RL problems.
Paper analyzes AIRL in high-dimensional spaces using random matrix theory.
problem AIRL's performance challenges in high-dimensional environments.
method Examined the rank of the matrix derived from transition matrix, applied random matrix theory.
result High-dimensional scenarios reveal transfer limitations not inherent to AIRL framework.
This paper explores how imperfect reward models can improve online RLHF.
problem Sample efficiency in online RLHF from imperfect reward models.
method Identifies policy coverability and proposes TPO algorithm for transfer learning.
result TPO algorithm improves sample efficiency compared to standard online learning.
Current reinforcement learning (RL) methods can successfully learn single tasks but often generalize poorly to modest perturbations in task domain or training procedure. In this work, we present a decoupled learning strategy for RL that creates a shared representation space where knowledge can be robustly transferred. …
Curriculum learning has been successfully used in reinforcement learning to accelerate the learning process, through knowledge transfer between tasks of increasing complexity. Critical tasks, in which suboptimal exploratory actions must be minimized, can benefit from curriculum learning, and its ability to shape explor…
New approach transfers rewards learned in one environment to reinforcement learning in a new environment.
problem Transfer of rewards learned using inverse reinforcement learning from one environment to a new, different environment.
method Formulate the problem as a joint system of Bellman equations, develop minimax estimators for the target soft-q-function, solve the source and target system of equations jointly. result The coupled approach removes the first-order influence of source Bellman residual error compared to the sequential approach.
Task-specific scores are often used to optimize for and evaluate the performance of conditional text generation systems. However, such scores are non-differentiable and cannot be used in the standard supervised learning paradigm. Hence, policy gradient methods are used since the gradient can be computed without requiri…
Transmeter quickly measures transferability between different datasets.
problem Measuring transferability between heterogeneous multivariate datasets.
method Pre-trained source model, adversarial network, and encoder-decoder architecture.
result Transmeter provides the most accurate transferability measurement up to 10.3 times faster.
Bayesian REX learns Atari games from demonstrations efficiently.
problem Bayesian reward learning for complex control problems is computationally intractable.
method Bayesian Reward Extrapolation (Bayesian REX) pre-trains a low-dimensional feature encoding and uses preferences to perform fast Bayesian inference.
result Bayesian REX learns Atari games from demonstrations in 5 minutes, competitive with state-of-the-art methods.
AIRL learns robust, generalizable reward functions from demonstrations.
problem Learning robust reward functions from demonstrations for changing environments.
method Adversarial Inverse Reinforcement Learning (AIRL) with hierarchical disentangled rewards.
result Generalizable policies and comparable results to state-of-the-art methods.
FAST improves fast and stable task adaptation in DNNs.
problem Catastrophic forgetting in fine-tuned pretrained models.
method Introducing FAST, an easy-to-implement fine-tuning algorithm.
result FAST learns target tasks faster and retains source knowledge longer.
Study shows fast rates for inverse reinforcement learning with linear rewards.
problem Entropy-regularized min-max inverse reinforcement learning in finite-horizon MDPs.
method Structural and statistical analysis of Min-Max-IRL with pseudo-self-concordance.
result Both trajectory-level KL divergence and parameter error decay at O(n−1). SF-DQN improves RL transfer by learning successor features.
problem Transfer RL with shared dynamics but different reward functions.
method Decomposes Q-function into SF and reward mapping; uses GPI for policy improvement.
result SF-DQN with GPI converges faster and generalizes better than traditional RL methods.
Paper tackles transfer RL under unobserved context, developing methods to reduce bias.
problem Transfer RL with unobserved contextual information leading to biased models.
method Develops causal bounds on transition and reward functions using demonstrator's data.
result Proposes Q learning and UCB-Q learning algorithms that converge to true value function without bias.
Reinforcement learning is a promising framework for solving control problems, but its use in practical situations is hampered by the fact that reward functions are often difficult to engineer. Specifying goals and tasks for autonomous machines, such as robots, is a significant challenge: conventionally, reward function…
Improves imitation learning in RL by learning reward function efficiently.
problem Lack of effective reward function approximation in AIRL for imitation tasks.
method Proposes Off-Policy AIRL that combines adversarial learning with efficient reward function approximation.
result Shows superior imitation performance and efficiency compared to state-of-the-art AIL algorithms.
A key question in Reinforcement Learning is which representation an agent can learn to efficiently reuse knowledge between different tasks. Recently the Successor Representation was shown to have empirical benefits for transferring knowledge between tasks with shared transition dynamics. This paper presents Model Featu…
Behavior Transfer improves reinforcement learning by leveraging pre-trained policies.
problem Efficient transfer of knowledge in reinforcement learning.
method Behavior Transfer (BT) that uses pre-trained policies for exploration.
result BT combined with pre-training leads to better solutions than without pre-training.
Transfer and adaptation to new unknown environmental dynamics is a key challenge for reinforcement learning (RL). An even greater challenge is performing near-optimally in a single attempt at test time, possibly without access to dense rewards, which is not addressed by current methods that require multiple experience …
Physics-informed neural networks simulate radiative transfer efficiently.
problem Simulating radiative transfer accurately and efficiently.
method Physics-informed neural networks trained to minimize radiative transfer equations.
result PINNs provide an easy-to-implement, robust, and accurate method for radiative transfer simulation.
We consider the task of Inverse Reinforcement Learning in Contextual Markov Decision Processes (MDPs). In this setting, contexts, which define the reward and transition kernel, are sampled from a distribution. In addition, although the reward is a function of the context, it is not provided to the agent. Instead, the a…
One question central to Reinforcement Learning is how to learn a feature representation that supports algorithm scaling and re-use of learned information from different tasks. Successor Features approach this problem by learning a feature representation that satisfies a temporal constraint. We present an implementation…
RL agents learn from a few tasks to generalize to new ones.
problem Creating efficient RL agents that can solve multiple tasks.
method GHP-MDPs model with latent variables for hidden parameters.
result State-of-the-art performance and sample-efficiency on new tasks.
New RL method MAC improves performance in sparse reward settings.
problem Slow mixing in large state spaces or sparse rewards.
method Multi-level Monte Carlo Actor-Critic (MAC) algorithm.
result Achieves convergence rate comparable to state-of-the-art AC algorithms.
We present a method for fast training of vision based control policies on real robots. The key idea behind our method is to perform multi-task Reinforcement Learning with auxiliary tasks that differ not only in the reward to be optimized but also in the state-space in which they operate. In particular, we allow auxilia…
Transfer learning across different reinforcement learning (RL) tasks is becoming an increasingly valuable area of research. We consider a goal-based multi-task RL framework and mechanisms by which previously solved tasks can reduce sample complexity and regret when the agent is faced with a new task. Specifically, we i…
Calculates local Granger causality for Gaussian and nonlinear systems.
problem Understanding causal influence in complex systems.
method Vector autoregression and information-theoretic approach.
result Local Granger causality offers a robust and fast method for time-directed information transfer.
Researchers use DT to transfer policies from one environment to another using causal reasoning.
problem Adapting to changes in environmental dynamics in reinforcement learning.
method Applying causal counterfactual reasoning to Decision Transformer (DT) architecture for policy transfer.
result DT successfully transfers a learned policy to new environments while retaining most of the reward.
PALM learns abstract models for efficient planning and task transfer.
problem Efficiently learning and transferring hierarchical models for planning.
method PALM uses a new formal structure (L-AMDP) to learn independent, modular models at multiple levels of abstraction.
result PALM integrates planning and execution, facilitating rapid learning of abstract models.
Scalable model for slate recommendation learns reward probabilities.
problem Scalable personalized slate recommendation in large action spaces.
method Probabilistic Rank and Reward (PRR) model combining reward, interaction, and rank.
result PRR outperforms existing methods and is scalable to large action spaces.
SARA uses similarity to learn rewards robustly and adaptively.
problem Robustness to labeler errors and adaptability to diverse feedback formats.
method Contrastive framework that learns latent representations and computes rewards as similarities.
result Strong performance on offline RL benchmarks and diverse applications.
This paper solves inverse reinforcement learning with options framework.
problem Reinforcement learning in complex environments with expert demonstrations.
method Gradient method for parametrized options, deducing Q-feature and reward feature spaces, optimal reward function selection.
result Recovered rewards provide effective solution to IRL problem and accelerate transfer learning.
New algorithms for multivariate RL improve decision-making in complex systems.
problem Complex multi-objective decision-making in reinforcement learning.
method Oracle-free and computationally-tractable algorithms for multivariate distributional RL.
result Convergence rates match scalar reward settings and provide insights into reward dimensionality.
We consider a problem of learning the reward and policy from expert examples under unknown dynamics. Our proposed method builds on the framework of generative adversarial networks and introduces the empowerment-regularized maximum-entropy inverse reinforcement learning to learn near-optimal rewards and policies. Empowe…
This paper explores the possibility of near-optimally solving multi-agent, multi-task NP-hard planning problems with time-dependent rewards using a learning-based algorithm. In particular, we consider a class of robot/machine scheduling problems called the multi-robot reward collection problem (MRRC). Such MRRC problem…
A new reward shaping method balances learning efficiency and effectiveness for robot manipulation.
problem Efficient and effective learning in robot manipulations with system uncertainty.
method Dense2Sparse reward shaping method combining dense and sparse rewards.
result Dense2Sparse method achieves higher expected reward and better system uncertainty tolerance.
A common challenge in reinforcement learning is how to convert the agent's interactions with an environment into fast and robust learning. For instance, earlier work makes use of domain knowledge to improve existing reinforcement learning algorithms in complex tasks. While promising, previously acquired knowledge is of…
Algorithm learns user's reward function from hypothetical behaviors.
problem Aligning agent behavior with unknown user objectives.
method Synthesizes hypothetical behaviors, asks user for rewards, trains neural network.
result Significantly outperforms prior methods in learning reward models.
Many cooperative multiagent reinforcement learning environments provide agents with a sparse team-based reward, as well as a dense agent-specific reward that incentivizes learning basic skills. Training policies solely on the team-based reward is often difficult due to its sparsity. Furthermore, relying solely on the a…
Arbitrary style transfer is an important problem in computer vision that aims to transfer style patterns from an arbitrary style image to a given content image. However, current methods either rely on slow iterative optimization or fast pre-determined feature transformation, but at the cost of compromised visual qualit…
Reward shaping is one of the most effective methods to tackle the crucial yet challenging problem of credit assignment in Reinforcement Learning (RL). However, designing shaping functions usually requires much expert knowledge and hand-engineering, and the difficulties are further exacerbated given multiple similar tas…