Unified view on selective credit assignment for reinforcement learning.
problem Efficient credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
method Unified temporal-difference algorithms with selective weightings.
result New algorithms for backward credit assignment and off-policy learning.
New algorithms assign credit to past decisions based on hindsight.
problem Efficient credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
method Explicit credit assignment using new data in hindsight.
result Value functions can be rewritten to include hindsight credit assignment.
COCOA improves credit assignment in reinforcement learning by measuring contributions to rewards.
problem Improving sample efficiency in reinforcement learning through better credit assignment methods.
method Counterfactual Contribution Analysis (COCOA) for precise credit assignment.
result COCOA achieves lower bias and variance compared to Hindsight Credit Assignment (HCA), improving reinforcement learning performance.
Delta-AI speeds up inference in sparse PGMs by local credit assignment.
problem Efficient inference in sparse probabilistic graphical models.
method Local credit assignment in agent's policy learning objective.
result Trained sampler recovers marginals and conditional distributions.
Two local learning rules are investigated to avoid weight transport in neural networks.
problem Local learning rules that avoid weight transport are unstable and require tuning.
method Investigated two non-local learning rules and a more robust local rule.
result Non-local learning rules match state-of-the-art performance and operate effectively in noisy updates.
We present a recurrent neural network memory that uses sparse coding to create a combinatoric encoding of sequential inputs. Using several examples, we show that the network can associate distant causes and effects in a discrete stochastic process, predict partially-observable higher-order sequences, and enable a DQN a…
Eigenoptions improve credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
problem Improving credit assignment in reinforcement learning models.
method Investigated eigenoptions for credit assignment in model-free RL, comparing pre-specified and online discovery methods.
result Pre-specified eigenoptions aid exploration and credit assignment, while online discovery can hinder learning.
Credit assignment in Meta-reinforcement learning (Meta-RL) is still poorly understood. Existing methods either neglect credit assignment to pre-adaptation behavior or implement it naively. This leads to poor sample-efficiency during meta-training as well as ineffective task identification strategies. This paper provide…
In this work, we study the credit assignment problem in reward augmented maximum likelihood (RAML) learning, and establish a theoretical equivalence between the token-level counterpart of RAML and the entropy regularized reinforcement learning. Inspired by the connection, we propose two sequence prediction algorithms, …
A model explains credit assignment in deep learning networks.
problem Understanding how deep learning assigns credit to parameters.
method Mean-field learning model with ensembles of sub-networks.
result Synaptic connections can be categorized into three types.
LICA learns credit assignment for cooperative agents without explicit formulation.
problem Credit assignment among cooperative agents.
method Centralized critic as hypernetwork, adaptive entropy regularization.
result Significantly outperforms previous methods on benchmarks.
The paper explores how planning with models improves credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
problem Improving credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
method Investigates the use of forward and backward models for planning in reinforcement learning.
result Establishes the relative merits and limitations of forward and backward planning mechanisms.
This paper proposes a definition of system health in the context of multiple agents optimizing a joint reward function. We use this definition as a credit assignment term in a policy gradient algorithm to distinguish the contributions of individual agents to the global reward. The health-informed credit assignment is t…
The study develops a machine learning system for credit scoring and default prediction.
problem Developing a robust credit rating and default prediction system.
method Combines NLP, AE, GBM, DE, and SHAP/LIME for model interpretability.
result Obtained excellent out-of-sample performance in credit rating and default prediction.
A variety of cooperative multi-agent control problems require agents to achieve individual goals while contributing to collective success. This multi-goal multi-agent setting poses difficulties for recent algorithms, which primarily target settings with a single global reward, due to two new challenges: efficient explo…
Introduces expected eligibility traces for more efficient credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
problem Efficiently assigning credit to states and actions in reinforcement learning.
method Introduces expected eligibility traces, allowing updates to counterfactual sequences.
result Substantial improvements in temporal-difference learning can be achieved with expected traces.
MRC improves credit assignment in multi-agent LLM systems, achieving high returns and transparency.
problem Lack of principled credit assignment in multi-agent LLM decision systems, vulnerability to regime shifts, and limited transparency.
method Market Regime Council (MRC) computes exact Shapley credits, uses exponentially weighted performance histories, Bayesian adaptive mixture, and regime-dependent multipliers.
result MRC achieves a Sharpe ratio of 1.51 and a cumulative return of 440.1% over 1,037 trading days, ranking first on CR, SR, and IR.
We consider the task of mapping pseudocode to long programs that are functionally correct. Given test cases as a mechanism to validate programs, we search over the space of possible translations of the pseudocode to find a program that passes the validation. However, without proper credit assignment to localize the sou…
New framework for modular reinforcement learning reduces sample complexity.
problem Achieving independent credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
method Defining modular credit assignment as minimizing algorithmic mutual information, introducing modularity criterion for causal analysis.
result Single-step temporal difference action-value methods meet the modularity criterion, improving sample efficiency.
New methods improve deep reinforcement learning by accelerating credit assignment.
problem Challenges in achieving fast and stable off-policy learning in deep reinforcement learning.
method Extends the generalized PBE objective to support multistep credit assignment and derives three gradient-based methods.
result Proposed methods outperform PPO and StreamQ in MuJoCo and MinAtar environments.
This paper proposes a new algorithm for learning guidance rewards in RL.
problem Long-term temporal credit assignment in sparse or delayed reward environments.
method Surrogate RL objective with trajectory-space smoothing to learn guidance rewards.
result Guidance rewards can be learned without additional neural networks and have intuitive interpretation.
Proposes a new neural network approach to credit assignment.
problem Credit assignment problem in deep neural networks.
method Contrastive similarity matching objective function.
result Deep networks learn to match similarity between layers.
The paper formalizes and analyzes multi-agent Q-learning with value factorization.
problem Understanding and improving the convergence of multi-agent Q-learning with value factorization.
method Formalized a multi-agent fitted Q-iteration framework for analyzing factorized multi-agent Q-learning.
result Multi-agent Q-learning with linear value factorization can converge under certain conditions.
Shapley Flow interprets model predictions using a graph-based approach to feature importance.
problem Existing feature importance methods ignore or hide feature dependencies.
method Shapley Flow considers the entire causal graph and assigns credit to edges.
result Shapley Flow provides a deeper, graph-based view of feature importance.
In preference-based reinforcement learning (RL), an agent interacts with the environment while receiving preferences instead of absolute feedback. While there is increasing research activity in preference-based RL, the design of formal frameworks that admit tractable theoretical analysis remains an open challenge. Buil…
Paper tackles end-to-end training of complex neural networks using DIP method.
problem Training complex heterogeneous neural network models end-to-end.
method Deep Innovation Protection (DIP) method using multiobjective optimization.
result End-to-end training of complex heterogeneous neural network models is possible.
MACC learns communication protocols by adapting counterfactual reasoning.
problem Credit assignment and non-stationarity in communication environments.
method Adapts counterfactual reasoning to overcome credit assignment and uses action policy and Q-function of other agents to handle non-stationarity.
result MACC outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in four scenarios.
Learning long-term dependencies in extended temporal sequences requires credit assignment to events far back in the past. The most common method for training recurrent neural networks, back-propagation through time (BPTT), requires credit information to be propagated backwards through every single step of the forward c…
We propose Stochastic Neural Architecture Search (SNAS), an economical end-to-end solution to Neural Architecture Search (NAS) that trains neural operation parameters and architecture distribution parameters in same round of back-propagation, while maintaining the completeness and differentiability of the NAS pipeline.…
Improved GFlowNets learn more efficiently with trajectory balance.
problem Inefficient credit assignment in GFlowNets leads to suboptimal learning.
method Proposed trajectory balance as a new learning objective.
result Trajectory balance leads to more efficient and robust GFlowNet learning.
Oja's rule improves neural network training without engineered tricks.
problem Training deep neural networks with biological constraints.
method Incorporating Oja's plasticity rule into error-driven training.
result Stable, efficient learning in feedforward and recurrent architectures.
Small Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) face many obstacles when they try to access credit market. These obstacles are increased if the SMEs are innovative. In this case, financial data are insufficient or even not reliable. Thus, when building a judgemental rating model, mainly based on qualitative criteria (soft inform…
Study finds implicit government guarantee improves municipal investment bond ratings.
problem Questioning the objectivity of municipal investment bond ratings due to implicit government guarantee.
method Text mining of policy documents and PMC index model for implicit guarantee strength calculation.
result Implicit government guarantee boosts municipal investment bond ratings, especially in less developed regions.
A scalable MARL algorithm using local rewards for cooperative multi-agent learning.
problem Scalability issues in cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning due to large state and action spaces.
method LOMAQ algorithm incorporating local rewards in centralized training and decentralized execution.
result LOMAQ scales well compared to other methods, improving performance and convergence speed.
Stochastic computation graphs (SCGs) provide a formalism to represent structured optimization problems arising in artificial intelligence, including supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. Previous work has shown that an unbiased estimator of the gradient of the expected loss of SCGs can be derived from a…
NoProp learns neural networks without full back-propagation or forward-propagation.
problem Learning hierarchical representations in neural networks.
method NoProp independently learns each block to denoise a noisy target using local targets and back-propagation within the block.
result NoProp is a viable learning algorithm that is easy to use and computationally efficient.
Credit scoring models support loan approval decisions in the financial services industry. Lenders train these models on data from previously granted credit applications, where the borrowers' repayment behavior has been observed. This approach creates sample bias. The scoring model (i.e., classifier) is trained on accep…
The role of credit rating agencies has been under severe scrutiny after the subprime crisis. In this paper we explore the relationship between credit ratings and informational efficiency of a sample of thirty nine corporate bonds of US oil and energy companies from April 2008 to November 2012. For that purpose, we use …
New method for valuing and hedging credit risk when defaults cannot be hedged.
problem Valuation and hedging of counterparty credit risk when there's no protection available.
method Local risk-minimization approach via BSDE (Backward Stochastic Differential Equation)
result Optimal strategy computed for valuing and hedging credit risk.
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…
A new model uses 'ghost units' to enable efficient backpropagation in deep neural networks.
problem How to achieve efficient backpropagation in deep neural networks with biological plausibility.
method Introduces 'ghost units' to cancel feedback, enabling efficient error backpropagation.
result Demonstrates that the model can approximate error gradients and achieve good performance on classification tasks.
New STDP rule for spiking neurons solves discrete action reinforcement learning tasks.
problem Applying standard STDP to discrete action reinforcement learning tasks.
method Feedback-modulated TD-STDP learning rule for spiking neuron networks.
result Feedback modulation improves credit assignment in reinforcement learning.
Paper analyzes deep learning models for credit rating prediction using text and numerical data.
problem Improving credit rating prediction using multi-modal deep learning.
method Testing different deep learning models and fusion strategies for structured and unstructured datasets.
result CNN-based multi-modal model with two fusion strategies outperformed other models.
Recent advances in deep reinforcement learning algorithms have shown great potential and success for solving many challenging real-world problems, including Go game and robotic applications. Usually, these algorithms need a carefully designed reward function to guide training in each time step. However, in real world, …
Improves text-to-image diffusion models using GFlowNets.
problem Aligning diffusion models with text descriptions.
method Post-training diffusion models with GFlowNets to generate high-reward images.
result Effective alignment of large-scale text-to-image diffusion models with reward information.
Identifying customer segments in retail banking portfolios with different risk profiles can improve the accuracy of credit scoring. The Variational Autoencoder (VAE) has shown promising results in different research domains, and it has been documented the powerful information embedded in the latent space of the VAE. We…
G-GLN extends GLNs to multiple regression and density modeling.
problem Learning features in deep neural networks.
method G-GLN uses a distributed and local credit assignment mechanism based on optimizing a convex objective.
result G-GLN achieves competitive or state-of-the-art performance on regression benchmarks.
Paper compares ML methods for credit scoring, highlighting feature selection and scaling impacts.
problem Determining default risk in credit scoring models.
method Eight ML methods (SVM, Naive Bayes, DT, RF, XGBoost, KNN, MLP, LR) with feature selection and scaling.
result Feature selection and scaling improve model performance in credit scoring.