Related papers: Incentive Decision Processes
Gradient-based approaches to direct policy search in reinforcement learning have received much recent attention as a means to solve problems of partial observability and to avoid some of the problems associated with policy degradation in…
There is much interest in using partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) as a formal model for planning in stochastic domains. This paper is concerned with finding optimal policies for POMDPs. We propose several improvements…
Regularization of control policies using entropy can be instrumental in adjusting predictability of real-world systems. Applications benefiting from such approaches range from, e.g., cybersecurity, which aims at maximal unpredictability, to…
Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) are a natural model for planning problems where effects of actions are nondeterministic and the state of the world is not completely observable. It is difficult to solve POMDPs…
Interactive partially observable Markov decision processes (I-POMDP) provide a formal framework for planning for a self-interested agent in multiagent settings. An agent operating in a multiagent environment must deliberate about the…
Complex behaviors are often driven by an internal model, which integrates sensory information over time and facilitates long-term planning. Inferring an agent's internal model is a crucial ingredient in social interactions (theory of mind),…
Autonomous agents often operate in scenarios where the state is partially observed. In addition to maximizing their cumulative reward, agents must execute complex tasks with rich temporal and logical structures. These tasks can be expressed…
The goal of imitation learning is for an apprentice to learn how to behave in a stochastic environment by observing a mentor demonstrating the correct behavior. Accurate prior knowledge about the correct behavior can reduce the need for…
Markov decision processes (MDPs) are used to model a wide variety of applications ranging from game playing over robotics to finance. Their optimal policy typically maximizes the expected sum of rewards given at each step of the decision…
Partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) is a rich mathematical framework that embraces a large class of complex sequential decision-making problems under uncertainty with limited observations. However, the complexity of…
We study a model of delegation in which a principal takes a multidimensional action and an agent has private information about a multidimensional state of the world. The principal can design any direct mechanism, including stochastic ones.…
Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) have been used to formulate many decision-making problems in science and engineering. The objective is to synthesize the best decision (action selection) policies to maximize expected rewards (or minimize…
Learning a near optimal policy in a partially observable system remains an elusive challenge in contemporary reinforcement learning. In this work, we consider episodic reinforcement learning in a reward-mixing Markov decision process (MDP).…
Finding different solutions to the same problem is a key aspect of intelligence associated with creativity and adaptation to novel situations. In reinforcement learning, a set of diverse policies can be useful for exploration, transfer,…
It is well known that for any finite state Markov decision process (MDP) there is a memoryless deterministic policy that maximizes the expected reward. For partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs), optimal memoryless policies…
A principal uses payments conditioned on stochastic outcomes of a team project to elicit costly effort from the team members. We develop a multi-agent generalization of a classic first-order approach to contract optimization by leveraging…
This paper discusses theoretical and experimental aspects of gradient-based approaches to the direct optimization of policy performance in controlled POMDPs. We introduce GPOMDP, a REINFORCE-like algorithm for estimating an approximation to…
In the Markov decision process model, policies are usually evaluated by expected cumulative rewards. As this decision criterion is not always suitable, we propose in this paper an algorithm for computing a policy optimal for the quantile…
Allocating scarce resources among agents to maximize global utility is, in general, computationally challenging. We focus on problems where resources enable agents to execute actions in stochastic environments, modeled as Markov decision…
In this paper we propose an algorithm for polynomial-time reinforcement learning in factored Markov decision processes (FMDPs). The factored optimistic initial model (FOIM) algorithm, maintains an empirical model of the FMDP in a…