The paper tackles reward-relevance in offline RL with sparse decision dynamics.
problem Offline reinforcement learning with sparse decision dynamics and estimation sparsity.
method Reward-filtered least-squares policy evaluation using thresholded lasso.
result The method provides theoretical guarantees with sample complexity dependent on sparse component size.
New algorithms for efficient learning with long-term rewards in contextual bandits.
problem Efficient learning with long-term rewards in contextual bandits.
method Proposes new algorithms leveraging sparsity to discover dependence patterns and arm parameters.
result Regret upper bounds for data-poor and data-rich regimes, showing improved sample complexity.
Text generation is a crucial task in NLP. Recently, several adversarial generative models have been proposed to improve the exposure bias problem in text generation. Though these models gain great success, they still suffer from the problems of reward sparsity and mode collapse. In order to address these two problems, …
New algorithm learns from sparse data without knowing sparsity index.
problem Sparse bandit problem where only a subset of features affects reward.
method Sparsity-agnostic Lasso Bandit algorithm that doesn't require prior sparsity index knowledge.
result Established tight regret bounds and outperforms existing methods.
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…
New method for linear bandits with unknown sparsity, improving sparse regret bounds.
problem Sparse regret bounds for unknown sparsity and adversarial action sets.
method Combines online to confidence set conversions with randomized model selection over nested confidence sets.
result First sparse regret bounds for unknown sparsity and adversarial action sets.
This paper investigates learning sparse representations and action-value functions simultaneously in deep reinforcement learning.
problem Mitigating catastrophic interference and improving cumulative reward in deep reinforcement learning agents.
method Employing regularization techniques to learn sparse representations and action-value functions incrementally.
result Learning sparse representations can improve performance and robustness in deep reinforcement learning agents.
New algorithms for generalized linear bandits with unknown reward functions.
problem Misspecification of reward functions in existing bandit algorithms.
method Introducing single index bandits, proposing STOR, ESTOR, and GSTOR algorithms.
result Achieved nearly optimal regret bound of i l d e O T ( T ) ilde{O}_T(\sqrt{T}) i l d e O T ( T ) . ESPD improves learning efficiency in sparse reward reinforcement learning.
problem Sparse reward reinforcement learning challenges.
method Evolutionary Stochastic Policy Distillation (ESPD) based on drifted random walk insight.
result High learning efficiency demonstrated in MuJoCo robotics control suite experiments.
Rewards are sparse in the real world and most of today's reinforcement learning algorithms struggle with such sparsity. One solution to this problem is to allow the agent to create rewards for itself - thus making rewards dense and more suitable for learning. In particular, inspired by curious behaviour in animals, obs…
MERL improves reinforcement learning by integrating problem knowledge into policy updates.
problem Reward sparsity and feature space conditioning in reinforcement learning.
method MERL framework that injects problem-focused quantities into policy gradient updates.
result Improved performance across various benchmark environments and transfer learning tasks.
Our understanding of reinforcement learning (RL) has been shaped by theoretical and empirical results that were obtained decades ago using tabular representations and linear function approximators. These results suggest that RL methods that use temporal differencing (TD) are superior to direct Monte Carlo estimation (M…
Novel algorithm reduces feature inclusion in online decision-making.
problem Optimizing decision-making for personalized user experiences with fairness.
method Online Batched Sequential Inclusion (OBSI) algorithm for sequential feature inclusion.
result OBSI outperforms other algorithms in terms of regret, relevance of features, and compute.
A new algorithm reduces communication costs for collaborative decision-making across clients.
problem Collaborative decision-making with sparse rewards and heterogeneous contexts.
method Federated Lasso algorithm for sparse linear contextual bandits.
result Achieves near-optimal regret with logarithmic communication costs.
Learning to imitate expert behavior from demonstrations can be challenging, especially in environments with high-dimensional, continuous observations and unknown dynamics. Supervised learning methods based on behavioral cloning (BC) suffer from distribution shift: because the agent greedily imitates demonstrated action…
This study benchmarks AI agents for personalized retail promotions using simulations.
problem Optimizing coupon targeting for sparse customer purchase events.
method Comprehensive simulations of customer shopping behaviors; training RL agents on batch data.
result Contextual bandit and deep RL methods outperform static policies in sparse reward environments.
Thresholded Lasso bandit minimizes regret in sparse linear bandits.
problem Sparse stochastic contextual linear bandits with large feature vectors.
method Uses Lasso framework with thresholding to estimate reward function and its sparse support.
result Non-asymptotic regret upper bounds scaling as O ( log d + T ) \mathcal{O}( \log d + \sqrt{T}) O ( log d + T ) . Goal-oriented reinforcement learning has recently been a practical framework for robotic manipulation tasks, in which an agent is required to reach a certain goal defined by a function on the state space. However, the sparsity of such reward definition makes traditional reinforcement learning algorithms very inefficien…
Proposes a framework for energy-efficient AIGC workload scheduling in cloud data centers.
problem Challenges of scheduling AIGC workloads for energy efficiency and quality control.
method Joint energy management and coordinated AIGC workload scheduling framework with diffusion model-aided reward shaping.
result Effective learning of scheduling policies under sparse environmental feedback.
Improved sample complexity for contextual combinatorial semi-bandits with sparse rewards.
problem Optimizing decisions in contexts with many possible actions and sparse rewards.
method Developed an algorithm for ( ε , δ ) (ε,δ) ( ε , δ ) -PAC variant of contextual combinatorial semi-bandits with improved sample complexity. result Achieved an ε ε ε -optimal policy with a sample complexity of i l d e O ( ( p o l y ( K / m ) + s m / ε 2 ) log ( ∣ Π ∣ / δ ) ) ilde{O}((poly(K/m)+sm/ε^2) \log(|Π|/δ)) i l d e O (( p o l y ( K / m ) + s m / ε 2 ) log ( ∣Π∣/ δ )) . A new algorithm reduces regret in high-dimensional online learning problems.
problem High-dimensional covariates with unknown reward function.
method BV-LASSO algorithm incorporating binning and voting for nonparametric variable selection.
result Achieves optimal regret i l d e O ( T ( d x ∗ + d y + 1 ) / ( d x ∗ + d y + 2 ) ) ilde{O}(T^{(d_x^*+d_y+1)/(d_x^*+d_y+2)}) i l d e O ( T ( d x ∗ + d y + 1 ) / ( d x ∗ + d y + 2 ) ) . Many sequential decision-making tasks require choosing at each decision step the right action out of the vast set of possibilities by extracting actionable intelligence from high-dimensional data streams. Most of the times, the high-dimensionality of actions and data makes learning of the optimal actions by traditional…
A two-phase algorithm identifies the best arm in sparse linear bandits with fixed budget.
problem Best arm identification in sparse linear bandits with limited budget.
method Lasso and Optimal-Design (Lasso-OD) based linear best-arm identification.
result Lasso-OD achieves significant performance improvement for sparse and high-dimensional linear bandits.
Study symmetric linear bandits with hidden symmetry, achieving improved regret bounds.
problem High-dimensional linear bandits with hidden symmetry.
method Model selection within low-dimensional subspaces to learn hidden symmetry.
result Achieved improved regret bounds of O ( d 0 2 / 3 T 2 / 3 log ( d ) ) O(d_0^{2/3} T^{2/3} \log(d)) O ( d 0 2/3 T 2/3 log ( d )) and O ( d 0 T log ( d ) ) O(d_0\sqrt{T\log(d)} ) O ( d 0 T log ( d ) ) . Algorithm achieves comparable performance to fully dynamic data with only a few batches.
problem High-dimensional multi-armed contextual bandits with batched feedback.
method Provable sample-efficient algorithm using batch allocation method.
result Achieves regret bounds comparable to fully sequential setting with only L = O(log T) batches.
New layer sparsity concept improves neural networks.
problem Improving neural network efficiency and interpretability.
method Formulated layer sparsity, introduced regularization and refitting schemes.
result Generated more compact and accurate neural networks.
We propose and study a general framework for regularized Markov decision processes (MDPs) where the goal is to find an optimal policy that maximizes the expected discounted total reward plus a policy regularization term. The extant entropy-regularized MDPs can be cast into our framework. Moreover, under our framework, …
Curious hierarchical reinforcement learning improves learning performance.
problem Combining hierarchical abstraction and curiosity-driven exploration in reinforcement learning.
method Developed a method that combines hierarchical reinforcement learning with curiosity.
result Curiosity can more than double learning performance and success rates.
Mobile robot navigation in complex and dynamic environments is a challenging but important problem. Reinforcement learning approaches fail to solve these tasks efficiently due to reward sparsities, temporal complexities and high-dimensionality of sensorimotor spaces which are inherent in such problems. We present a nov…
AlphaSAGE mines diverse alphas via GFlowNets, overcoming RL issues.
problem Reward sparsity, inadequate sequential representations, and single optimal mode issues in RL for alphas.
method Structure-aware encoder (RGCN), GFlowNets, dense reward structure.
result Empirically outperforms existing baselines in mining diverse alphas.
Our work is focused on the joint sparsity recovery problem where the common sparsity pattern is corrupted by Poisson noise. We formulate the confidence-constrained optimization problem in both least squares (LS) and maximum likelihood (ML) frameworks and study the conditions for perfect reconstruction of the original r…
STR reparameterizes DNN weights with soft thresholds for better sparsity and accuracy.
problem Improving sparsity in DNNs for better accuracy and lower inference cost.
method Soft Threshold Reparameterization (STR) using the soft-threshold operator on DNN weights.
result STR achieves state-of-the-art accuracy and reduces FLOPs by up to 50%.
New theorem for generalized group sparsity improves consistency and convergence rates.
problem Improving statistical inference in high-dimensional data with element-wise and group-wise sparsity.
method Developed a generalized version of Sparse-Group Lasso and proved a universal theorem for consistency and convergence rates.
result Obtained results on consistency and convergence rates for different forms of double sparsity regularization.
This paper studies activation sparsity in large language models, finding key trends and implications.
problem Activation sparsity in large language models (LLMs) can be improved for efficiency and interpretability.
method Proposes PPL- p % p\% p % sparsity, analyzes trends with training data, width-depth ratio, and parameter scale. result ReLU is more efficient for sparsity than SiLU, and deeper architectures can improve sparsity.
New method targets sparsity to prevent overfitting in deep nets.
problem Overfitting in deep neural networks with small datasets.
method Targeted sparsity regularization to visualize and counteract overfitting.
result Significant increase in image classification performance without overfitting.
Embeds sparsity in deep neural networks, allowing exact zero parameters.
problem Learning sparse structures in deep networks.
method Embeds sparsity into neural network structure, allowing exact zero parameters during training.
result Can learn both structured and unstructured sparsity.
Reward hacking exploits misspecified rewards, affecting agent capabilities and true performance.
problem Reward hacking in RL models exploiting reward misspecifications.
method Constructed four RL environments with misspecified rewards; analyzed agent capabilities and behavior.
result More capable agents exploit reward misspecifications, achieving higher proxy reward but lower true reward.
Sparsity helps reduce the computational complexity of deep neural networks by skipping zeros. Taking advantage of sparsity is listed as a high priority in next generation DNN accelerators such as TPU. The structure of sparsity, i.e., the granularity of pruning, affects the efficiency of hardware accelerator design as w…
New sparsity attacks degrade DNN efficiency, raising concerns for resource-constrained systems.
problem Vulnerabilities in DNNs through energy and latency attacks.
method Proposed sparsity attacks that modify DNN inputs to reduce activation sparsity, increasing execution time and energy consumption.
result Adversarial sparsity attacks can degrade DNN efficiency by up to 1.82x in image recognition DNNs.
Paper introduces PRMs to learn non-Markovian stochastic rewards for reinforcement learning.
problem Lack of structured representation for non-Markovian stochastic rewards in reinforcement learning.
method Introduces probabilistic reward machines (PRMs) and presents an algorithm to learn them from decision processes.
result Algorithm proves correct and convergent for learning PRMs from decision processes.
Paper addresses reward learning issues in RL, improving both under- and over-estimation.
problem Reward learning from data can lead to reward delusions or underestimation, causing unintended behaviors.
method Connects reward learning to positive-unlabeled (PU) learning and applies a large-scale PU learning algorithm.
result Improves both GAIL and supervised reward learning without additional assumptions.
This work analyzes the value of future reward information in RL.
problem Analyzing the impact of knowing future rewards in reinforcement learning.
method Competitive analysis and worst-case reward distribution.
result Exact ratios between standard RL agents and those with future-reward lookahead.
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.
The study categorizes reward errors in reinforcement learning, finding some can be beneficial.
problem Training language models with imperfect proxy rewards.
method Theoretical analysis of policy gradient optimization and categorization of reward errors.
result Reward errors can be benign or even beneficial, preventing policy from stalling.
Reward collapse occurs when ranking-based reward models yield uniform rewards for different prompts.
problem Reward collapse in aligning large language models with human preferences.
method Introduced a prompt-aware optimization scheme to derive closed-form expressions for reward distributions.
result Our prompt-aware utility functions significantly alleviate reward collapse during training.
Reward models need more than just accuracy for effective RLHF.
problem The effectiveness of reward models in RLHF is not fully understood.
method An optimization perspective to evaluate reward models.
result Reward models with low reward variance can lead to a flat optimization landscape, hindering performance.
Proposes a method to boost deep reinforcement learning with sparse rewards.
problem Challenges in learning complex behaviors with long horizons and sparse rewards.
method Predictive coding for reward shaping.
result Achieves better learning by providing reward signals that understand environment dynamics and emphasize useful features.
Complexity helps identify sparse risk factors in asset pricing.
problem Tension between feature richness and economic parsimony in high-dimensional asset pricing.
method Expanding feature space and using basis pursuit to discover sparse risk factors.
result Nonlinear feature expansions combined with basis pursuit yield superior out-of-sample performance.