New method reduces state distribution mismatch in off-policy RL.
problem State distribution mismatch in off-policy RL algorithms.
method Develops a novel constrained off-policy gradient objective to minimize state distribution shift.
result Minimizing state distribution shift improves performance in off-policy RL algorithms.
Stabilizes policy optimization with off-policy data using divergence augmentation.
problem Premature convergence and instability in policy optimization with off-policy data.
method Incorporates Bregman divergence between behavior and current policies to ensure safe policy updates.
result Empirically shows better performance in data-scarce scenarios compared to other algorithms.
Study off-policy evaluation in partially observable environments, reducing bias and errors.
problem Bias and large errors in off-policy evaluation for partially observable environments.
method Defined and solved off-policy evaluation for POMDPs, introduced Decoupled POMDP model.
result Demonstrated and compared off-policy evaluation methods, showing benefits of new approach.
Estimates policy value from off-policy data in contextual bandits.
problem Estimating policy value from limited off-policy data in contextual bandits.
method Empirical likelihood techniques for optimization.
result Improves over previous methods in finite sample regimes.
New algorithm BEAR reduces instability in off-policy Q-learning.
problem High sensitivity of off-policy Q-learning methods to data distribution.
method Identified and mitigated bootstrapping error through constrained action selection.
result BEAR algorithm learns robustly from various off-policy distributions.
Paper addresses off-policy evaluation and learning with covariate shift.
problem Evaluating and training a new policy using historical data with a covariate shift.
method Derives efficiency bounds and proposes doubly robust estimators for OPE and OPL under covariate shift.
result Proposes estimators for off-policy evaluation and learning under covariate shift.
New algorithm for sequential off-policy learning improves performance over batch methods.
problem Training policies from logged interaction data in a sequential setting.
method Combines Logarithmic Smoothing with online PAC-Bayesian tools.
result Improves performance and accelerates convergence in sequential off-policy learning.
HO2 learns options from data efficiently, improving robot manipulation tasks.
problem Learning options from raw pixel inputs in 3D robot manipulation tasks.
method HO2 infers likely option choices and trains all policy components off-policy.
result HO2 outperforms existing methods on 3D robot manipulation tasks.
A new estimator improves off-policy evaluation in RL, outperforming existing methods.
problem Estimating performance of a new policy using historical data from a different policy.
method Doubly-robust estimator based on Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation, with variance reduction techniques.
result Our estimator uniformly outperforms existing methods across various RL environments and levels of model misspecification.
Study optimizes portfolio allocation policies using off-policy data and constraints.
problem Optimizing portfolio allocation policies under constraints using off-policy data.
method Solves a minimax objective with off-policy estimators and online learning to control constraint violations.
result Constructs near-optimal allocation policies for various regimes of operation and constraints.
Paper proposes a framework for reliable off-policy evaluation in reinforcement learning.
problem Quantifying uncertainty in off-policy estimates for safe deployment of target policies.
method Distributionally robust optimization for creating confidence bounds.
result Non-asymptotic and asymptotic guarantees for robust cumulative reward estimates.
New methods estimate policy value and gradients for deterministic policies from off-policy data.
problem Estimating policy value and gradients for deterministic policies from off-policy data.
method Proposed new doubly robust estimators based on kernelization approaches.
result Demonstrated a rate independent of horizon length for policy value and gradient estimation.
Novel RL algorithms learn from human interaction data without exploration.
problem Efficiently learning from off-policy data in reinforcement learning.
method Developed off-policy batch RL algorithms using KL-control and dropout-based uncertainty.
result Successfully learned multiple reward functions from human interaction data.
Method selects best estimator for off-policy evaluation.
problem Choosing the best estimator for off-policy evaluation.
method Generic data-driven method for estimator selection.
result Method is competitive with oracle estimator, up to a constant factor.
New method estimates off-policy data without needing known behavior policy.
problem Long-horizon reinforcement learning with limited on-policy data.
method Formulates problem as fixed point of operator, uses RKHS for estimation.
result Asymptotic consistency and finite-sample generalization proven.
We consider the problem of off-policy evaluation in Markov decision processes. Off-policy evaluation is the task of evaluating the expected return of one policy with data generated by a different, behavior policy. Importance sampling is a technique for off-policy evaluation that re-weights off-policy returns to account…
The paper introduces a novel method for stable off-policy learning using value function chaining.
problem Stability issues in off-policy reinforcement learning.
method The approach involves learning on-policy first, then chaining off-policy value estimates.
result The method guarantees convergence and can approximate off-policy TD solutions.
We study the problem of off-policy policy optimization in Markov decision processes, and develop a novel off-policy policy gradient method. Prior off-policy policy gradient approaches have generally ignored the mismatch between the distribution of states visited under the behavior policy used to collect data, and what …
Proposes a convergent TD algorithm for off-policy RL.
problem Learning value function from different policies in RL.
method Convergent on-policy TD algorithm with linear function approximation.
result Proposes a convergent TD algorithm for off-policy RL.
New method optimizes policies in non-stationary environments.
problem Optimizing policies in non-stationary, context-dependent environments.
method Two-phase approach: offline learning and online adaptation.
result Our method outperforms existing approaches in both synthetic and real-world datasets.
The paper analyzes off-policy TD-learning using generalized Bellman operators and provides finite-sample bounds.
problem High variance in off-policy TD-learning due to importance sampling.
method Derives finite-sample bounds for off-policy TD-like algorithms using generalized Bellman operators.
result First-known finite-sample guarantees for several off-policy TD algorithms.
DOLCE improves off-policy evaluation and learning by decomposing effects.
problem Bias in off-policy evaluation and learning due to policy mismatch.
method Uses lagged contexts and a moment-based training procedure to decompose and cancel bias.
result DOLCE achieves substantial improvements in off-policy evaluation and learning.
This work develops confidence intervals for off-policy evaluation.
problem Estimating expected reward with uncertainty quantification.
method Primal-dual optimization with kernel Bellman loss and martingale concentration inequality.
result Developed practical algorithm for non-asymptotic confidence intervals.
Adapts GRPO for off-policy RL, improving reward.
problem Improving training stability and efficiency in RL.
method Adapts GRPO to off-policy setting, uses clipped surrogate objectives.
result Off-policy GRPO outperforms on-policy GRPO in empirical tests.
Improved off-policy selection and learning in contextual bandits with better guarantees.
problem Selecting or training a reward-maximizing policy using data from a fixed behavior policy.
method A betting-based confidence bound applied to an inverse propensity weight sequence for off-policy selection, and a freezing condition for off-policy learning.
result The proposed methods achieve significantly improved guarantees over prior work, especially in small-data regimes.
Unified DICE estimators as regularized Lagrangians for improved off-policy evaluation.
problem Improving off-policy evaluation from behavior-agnostic data.
method Unified derivation of DICE estimators as regularized Lagrangians of a linear program.
result Dual solutions offer greater flexibility and provide superior estimates in practice.
New estimator uses clustering to improve off-policy evaluation accuracy.
problem Improving off-policy evaluation accuracy when logging and evaluation policies differ.
method Proposes an estimator that shares information across similar contexts using clustering.
result Clustering contexts improves estimation accuracy, especially in deficient information settings.
We develop an off-policy actor-critic algorithm for learning an optimal policy from a training set composed of data from multiple individuals. This algorithm is developed with a view towards its use in mobile health.
New method estimates state-action stationary distribution for better off-policy policy evaluation.
problem Accurately estimating state-action stationary distribution for off-policy policy evaluation.
method Estimated Mixture Policy (EMP) for state and state-action stationary distribution corrections.
result Empirical validation shows improved accuracy over state-of-the-art methods.
Novel LSE estimator improves off-policy learning and evaluation.
problem High variance and poor performance with low-quality propensity scores and heavy-tailed reward distributions.
method Introduces a novel estimator based on the log-sum-exponential (LSE) operator.
result Achieves convergence rate of O(n−ε/(1+ε)) for regret bounds. The ability to perform effective off-policy learning would revolutionize the process of building better interactive systems, such as search engines and recommendation systems for e-commerce, computational advertising and news. Recent approaches for off-policy evaluation and learning in these settings appear promising. …
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.
The paper improves off-policy evaluation in contextual bandits using conformal prediction.
problem Quantifying the performance of a target policy using data from a different behavior policy.
method Proposes a novel algorithm based on a PAC-valid conformal prediction framework to construct probably approximately correct prediction intervals.
result Establishes PAC-type bounds on coverage, improving theoretical guarantees.
Improves reinforcement learning stability and efficiency.
problem Combining stability and efficiency in reinforcement learning.
method Combines on-policy stability with off-policy sample reuse.
result Demonstrates improved performance in both theory and practice.
New method for rigorous confidence intervals in off-policy evaluation.
problem Evaluate new policies from off-policy data without executing them.
method Variational framework using kernel Bellman loss.
result Efficient method for tight confidence intervals in various settings.
Develops methods to estimate and quantify uncertainty in off-policy evaluation.
problem Uncertainty quantification in off-policy evaluation for new policy deployment.
method Designs a pseudo policy to generate subsamples and applies conformal prediction.
result Valid interval estimators for target policy's return with uncertainty quantification.
This paper improves sample efficiency for off-policy evaluation with preference data.
problem Improving sample efficiency for off-policy evaluation with preference data.
method Using a deep neural network to learn the value function and leveraging manifold structure.
result Established a provably efficient guarantee for off-policy evaluation with RLHF.
New method improves off-policy critic evaluation in reinforcement learning.
problem High variance and instability in off-policy policy evaluation.
method Doubly robust estimators applied to actor-critic algorithms.
result Doubly robust estimation significantly improves performance in continuous control tasks.
Paper tackles efficient policy gradient estimation from off-policy data.
problem Estimating policy gradients from off-policy data is challenging and inefficient.
method Derives asymptotic lower bounds, proposes a meta-algorithm with 3-way robustness, and establishes convergence guarantees.
result Meta-algorithm achieves the lower bound on mean-squared error without parametric assumptions.
New methods improve off-policy evaluation for survival outcomes with censoring.
problem Systematic underestimation of policy performance due to censoring bias in survival outcomes.
method Proposes IPCW-IPS and IPCW-DR to handle censoring bias in survival outcomes.
result The proposed methods are unbiased and achieve double robustness.
The paper introduces a new framework for off-policy reinforcement learning.
problem Improving off-policy reinforcement learning algorithms.
method Conceptual framework based on conditional importance sampling.
result Theoretical analysis and concrete algorithm investigation.
Hybrid RL algorithm combines offline and online data for robust and efficient policy learning.
problem Combining robust on-policy methods with efficient offline data for hybrid RL.
method Integrates off-policy training on offline data into on-policy NPG framework.
result Achieves state-of-the-art theoretical guarantees and maintains on-policy NPG guarantees.
Enhances SAC for better sample efficiency in continuous-action tasks.
problem Improving sample efficiency in soft actor-critic algorithms.
method Integrating Emphasizing Recent Experience (ERE) with Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) and Priority Experience Replay (PER).
result ERE significantly improves sample efficiency compared to vanilla SAC, especially for continuous-action tasks.
The paper proposes an interpretable off-policy learning algorithm for medical treatments.
problem Lack of interpretable methods for personalized treatment decisions from observational data.
method Hyperbox search approach for interpretable policies in disjunctive normal form.
result The proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of regret and is rated highly interpretable by clinical experts.
Paper proposes a method to improve off-policy reinforcement learning in batch settings.
problem Challenges in applying off-policy reinforcement learning to batch data.
method Uses a learned prior, the advantage-weighted behavior model (ABM), to bias RL policies.
result Improves performance on various RL tasks, including robot control.
This paper investigates the problem of online prediction learning, where learning proceeds continuously as the agent interacts with an environment. The predictions made by the agent are contingent on a particular way of behaving, represented as a value function. However, the behavior used to select actions and generate…
Many practical applications of reinforcement learning constrain agents to learn from a fixed batch of data which has already been gathered, without offering further possibility for data collection. In this paper, we demonstrate that due to errors introduced by extrapolation, standard off-policy deep reinforcement learn…
Evolutionary Strategies optimize hyper-parameters for off-policy learning.
problem Hyper-parameter sensitivity in off-policy learning.
method Application of Evolutionary Strategies for online hyper-parameter tuning.
result Our method outperforms state-of-the-art baselines.