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.
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.
This paper extends off-policy reinforcement learning to the multi-agent case in which a set of networked agents communicating with their neighbors according to a time-varying graph collaboratively evaluates and improves a target policy while following a distinct behavior policy. To this end, the paper develops a multi-…
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.
Temporal difference learning and Residual Gradient methods are the most widely used temporal difference based learning algorithms; however, it has been shown that none of their objective functions is optimal w.r.t approximating the true value function V. Two novel algorithms are proposed to approximate the true value…
Memory-efficient algorithm reduces variance in off-policy RL.
problem High variance in off-policy policy optimization.
method Memory-efficient, stochastically variance-reduced algorithm using off-policy samples.
result Empirically validated effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Paper improves bootstrapping for off-policy reinforcement learning inference.
problem Improving bootstrapping for off-policy reinforcement learning inference.
method Proposes a bootstrapping FQE method for off-policy statistical inference and a subsampling procedure to improve runtime.
result Asymptotically efficient and distributionally consistent bootstrapping FQE method for off-policy inference.
RO-TD learns sparse value functions efficiently.
problem Learning sparse value functions efficiently.
method RO-TD integrates off-policy convergent gradient TD methods and online convex regularization.
result RO-TD learns sparse value functions with low computational complexity.
This work studies the problem of batch off-policy evaluation for Reinforcement Learning in partially observable environments. Off-policy evaluation under partial observability is inherently prone to bias, with risk of arbitrarily large errors. We define the problem of off-policy evaluation for Partially Observable Mark…
Off-policy deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are incapable of learning solely from batch offline data without online interactions with the environment, due to the phenomenon known as \textit{extrapolation error}. This is often due to past data available in the replay buffer that may be quite different from th…
We study the problem of off-policy critic evaluation in several variants of value-based off-policy actor-critic algorithms. Off-policy actor-critic algorithms require an off-policy critic evaluation step, to estimate the value of the new policy after every policy gradient update. Despite enormous success of off-policy …
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.
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. Boosting for off-policy learning reduces empirical risk.
problem Learning from logged bandit feedback without labeled data.
method A boosting algorithm optimizing policy's expected reward.
result Excess empirical risk decreases with each round of boosting.
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.
Off-policy reinforcement learning aims to leverage experience collected from prior policies for sample-efficient learning. However, in practice, commonly used off-policy approximate dynamic programming methods based on Q-learning and actor-critic methods are highly sensitive to the data distribution, and can make only …
The principal contribution of this paper is a conceptual framework for off-policy reinforcement learning, based on conditional expectations of importance sampling ratios. This framework yields new perspectives and understanding of existing off-policy algorithms, and reveals a broad space of unexplored algorithms. We th…
SUNRISE improves off-policy RL algorithms by integrating ensemble methods.
problem Stability and exploration issues in off-policy RL algorithms.
method SUNRISE combines ensemble-based weighted Bellman backups and upper-confidence bounds for efficient exploration.
result SUNRISE improves the performance of off-policy RL algorithms across various domains.
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.
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.
This paper reviews off-policy evaluation methods in reinforcement learning.
problem Efficiency and accuracy of off-policy evaluation methods in reinforcement learning.
method Discussion of existing OPE methods, their statistical properties, and related research directions.
result Efficiency bounds and state-of-the-art OPE methods in reinforcement learning.
New algorithms improve policy evaluation in reinforcement learning.
problem Off-policy stability and on-policy efficiency issues in policy evaluation.
method Introduced novel algorithms using oblique projection method.
result Demonstrated both off-policy stability and on-policy efficiency.
Monotonic policy improvement and off-policy learning are two main desirable properties for reinforcement learning algorithms. In this paper, by lower bounding the performance difference of two policies, we show that the monotonic policy improvement is guaranteed from on- and off-policy mixture samples. An optimization …
We propose and analyze an alternate approach to off-policy multi-step temporal difference learning, in which off-policy returns are corrected with the current Q-function in terms of rewards, rather than with the target policy in terms of transition probabilities. We prove that such approximate corrections are sufficien…
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…
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.
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.
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.
Improves RL algorithms with two techniques.
problem Enhance off-policy RL performance.
method Formulates RL as proximal point iteration; uses value functions for improved action value estimate.
result Significant performance improvement on RL benchmarks.
New algorithm reduces bias in off-policy reinforcement learning.
problem Challenges in designing off-policy reinforcement learning algorithms.
method Doubly robust off-policy actor-critic (DR-Off-PAC) with a single timescale structure.
result Establishes the first overall sample complexity analysis for a single time-scale off-policy AC algorithm.
We study the problem of off-policy evaluation (OPE) in Reinforcement Learning (RL), where the aim is to estimate the performance of a new policy given historical data that may have been generated by a different policy, or policies. In particular, we introduce a novel doubly-robust estimator for the OPE problem in RL, b…
The paper shows how to stabilize off-policy reinforcement learning using specific state representations.
problem Stability issues in reinforcement learning with function approximation and off-policy learning.
method Formal analysis of representation learning schemes based on the transition matrix of a policy.
result Schur and orthogonal bases of the Krylov subspace provide stable representations for TD learning.
Simplifies RL training with fewer techniques, reducing bias and instability.
problem Training instabilities and high sample complexity in RL.
method Introduced a simple deterministic policy gradient, used propensity estimation, and delayed policy updates.
result Improved performance and reduced sample complexity through these techniques.
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.
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 uses RL and diffusion models to solve Bayesian inverse problems.
problem Bayesian inverse problems with latent biases.
method Relative Trajectory Balance (RTB) for RL, conditional diffusion models, off-policy backtracking exploration.
result RTB improves diffusion model posteriors for inverse problems.
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.
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.
Model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms have been demonstrated on a range of challenging decision making and control tasks. However, these methods typically suffer from two major challenges: very high sample complexity and brittle convergence properties, which necessitate meticulous hyperparameter tuning…
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. …
Study online learning with off-policy feedback in adversarial bandit problems.
problem Learning with limited direct feedback in sequential decision making.
method Proposed algorithms that adapt pessimistic reward estimators to handle unknown behavior policy.
result Guaranteed regret bounds scaling with policy mismatch, improving performance against well-covered comparators.
The study improves off-policy learning by smoothing IPS and provides a generalization bound.
problem Improving off-policy learning from logged bandit data.
method Smooth regularization for IPS, deriving a two-sided PAC-Bayes generalization bound.
result The bound is valid for standard IPS and provides insights into when regularization is useful.
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.
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 …
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.
This paper studies optimal approximation factors in misspecified off-policy RL, identifying key factors under various settings.
problem Understanding optimal approximation factors in misspecified off-policy value function estimation.
method Examined various settings including weighted L2-norm, L∞ norm, state aliasing, and state coverage. result Established optimal asymptotic approximation factors for different norms and identified two instance-dependent factors for L2(μ) norm. Unified Bayesian framework for efficient off-policy evaluation and learning in large action spaces.
problem Efficient off-policy evaluation and learning in systems with correlated actions.
method Unified Bayesian framework with structured priors and sDM approach.
result sDM leverages action correlations without compromising computational efficiency.
Most deep reinforcement learning (RL) systems are not able to learn effectively from off-policy data, especially if they cannot explore online in the environment. These are critical shortcomings for applying RL to real-world problems where collecting data is expensive, and models must be tested offline before being dep…