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Related papers: Sparse Reward Processes

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Reinforcement learning is a machine learning approach based on behavioral psychology. It is focused on learning agents that can acquire knowledge and learn to carry out new tasks by interacting with the environment. However, a problem…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-12-15 Hugo Muñoz , Ernesto Portugal , Angel Ayala , Bruno Fernandes , Francisco Cruz

The challenge of developing powerful and general Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents has received increasing attention in recent years. Much of this effort has focused on the single-agent setting, in which an agent maximizes a predefined…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-21 Jiachen Yang , Ang Li , Mehrdad Farajtabar , Peter Sunehag , Edward Hughes , Hongyuan Zha

Active learning agents typically employ a query selection algorithm which solely considers the agent's learning objectives. However, this may be insufficient in more realistic human domains. This work uses imitation learning to enable an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-07-02 Kalesha Bullard , Yannick Schroecker , Sonia Chernova

In many real-world sequential decision making problems, the number of available actions (decisions) can vary over time. While problems like catastrophic forgetting, changing transition dynamics, changing rewards functions, etc. have been…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-12 Yash Chandak , Georgios Theocharous , Chris Nota , Philip S. Thomas

Reward machines are an established tool for dealing with reinforcement learning problems in which rewards are sparse and depend on complex sequences of actions. However, existing algorithms for learning reward machines assume an overly…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-20 Jan Corazza , Ivan Gavran , Daniel Neider

As a schematic model of the complexity economic agents are confronted with, we introduce the ``SK-game'', a discrete time binary choice model inspired from mean-field spin-glasses. We show that even in a completely static environment,…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2024-08-27 Jerome Garnier-Brun , Michael Benzaquen , Jean-Philippe Bouchaud

We present a method for learning intrinsic reward functions to drive the learning of an agent during periods of practice in which extrinsic task rewards are not available. During practice, the environment may differ from the one available…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2019-12-17 Janarthanan Rajendran , Richard Lewis , Vivek Veeriah , Honglak Lee , Satinder Singh

Reinforcement learning in multiagent systems has been studied in the fields of economic game theory, artificial intelligence and statistical physics by developing an analytical understanding of the learning dynamics (often in relation to…

Multiagent Systems · Computer Science 2019-06-25 Wolfram Barfuss , Jonathan F. Donges , Jürgen Kurths

Reinforcement learning algorithms can train agents that solve problems in complex, interesting environments. Normally, the complexity of the trained agent is closely related to the complexity of the environment. This suggests that a highly…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-03-16 Trapit Bansal , Jakub Pachocki , Szymon Sidor , Ilya Sutskever , Igor Mordatch

We introduce the framework of performative reinforcement learning where the policy chosen by the learner affects the underlying reward and transition dynamics of the environment. Following the recent literature on performative…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-08 Debmalya Mandal , Stelios Triantafyllou , Goran Radanovic

Much of the current work on reinforcement learning studies episodic settings, where the agent is reset between trials to an initial state distribution, often with well-shaped reward functions. Non-episodic settings, where the agent must…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-23 John D. Co-Reyes , Suvansh Sanjeev , Glen Berseth , Abhishek Gupta , Sergey Levine

One of the challenges in applying reinforcement learning in a complex real-world environment lies in providing the agent with a sufficiently detailed reward function. Any misalignment between the reward and the desired behavior can result…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-24 Neta Glazer , Aviv Navon , Aviv Shamsian , Ethan Fetaya

In repeated games, such as auctions, players rely on autonomous learning agents to choose their actions. We study settings in which players have their agents make monetary transfers to other agents during play at their own expense, in order…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-02-12 Yoav Kolumbus , Joe Halpern , Éva Tardos

Reinforcement learning algorithms describe how an agent can learn an optimal action policy in a sequential decision process, through repeated experience. In a given environment, the agent policy provides him some running and terminal…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2020-03-24 Arthur Charpentier , Romuald Elie , Carl Remlinger

The problem of reinforcement learning is considered where the environment or the model undergoes a change. An algorithm is proposed that an agent can apply in such a problem to achieve the optimal long-time discounted reward. The algorithm…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-04-25 Wuxia Chen , Taposh Banerjee , Jemin George , Carl Busart

Reward design is a critical part of the application of reinforcement learning, the performance of which strongly depends on how well the reward signal frames the goal of the designer and how well the signal assesses progress in reaching…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-01 Yixiang Wang , Yujing Hu , Feng Wu , Yingfeng Chen

Dealing with environments with sparse rewards has always been crucial for systems developed to operate in autonomous open-ended learning settings. Intrinsic Motivations could be an effective way to help Deep Reinforcement Learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-07 Gianluca Maselli , Vieri Giuliano Santucci

This work considers a repeated principal-agent bandit game, where the principal can only interact with her environment through the agent. The principal and the agent have misaligned objectives and the choice of action is only left to the…

We develop a general problem setting for training and testing the ability of agents to gather information efficiently. Specifically, we present a collection of tasks in which success requires searching through a partially-observed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-12-09 Philip Bachman , Alessandro Sordoni , Adam Trischler

In this work, we ask for and answer what makes classical temporal-difference reinforcement learning with epsilon-greedy strategies cooperative. Cooperating in social dilemma situations is vital for animals, humans, and machines. While…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-22 Wolfram Barfuss , Janusz Meylahn