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To learn approximately optimal acting policies for decision problems, modern Actor Critic algorithms rely on deep Neural Networks (DNNs) to parameterize the acting policy and greedification operators to iteratively improve it. The reliance…

Risk-aware Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms like SAC and TD3 were shown empirically to outperform their risk-neutral counterparts in a variety of continuous-action tasks. However, the theoretical basis for the pessimistic objectives…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-27 Michal Nauman , Marek Cygan

We show that the simplest actor-critic method -- a linear softmax policy updated with TD through interaction with a linear MDP, but featuring no explicit regularization or exploration -- does not merely find an optimal policy, but moreover…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-03-15 Yuzheng Hu , Ziwei Ji , Matus Telgarsky

We propose a fully distributed actor-critic architecture, named Diff-DAC, with application to multitask reinforcement learning (MRL). During the learning process, agents communicate their value and policy parameters to their neighbours,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-26 Sergio Valcarcel Macua , Ian Davies , Aleksi Tukiainen , Enrique Munoz de Cote

Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved remarkable advancements in natural language processing tasks, yet they encounter challenges in complex decision-making scenarios that require long-term reasoning and alignment with high-level…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-06-10 Heng Dong , Kefei Duan , Chongjie Zhang

The actor-critic (AC) reinforcement learning algorithms have been the powerhouse behind many challenging applications. Nevertheless, its convergence is fragile in general. To study its instability, existing works mostly consider the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-28 Xuyang Chen , Jingliang Duan , Yingbin Liang , Lin Zhao

We introduce D2AC, a new model-free reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm designed to train expressive diffusion policies online effectively. At its core is a policy improvement objective that avoids the high variance of typical policy…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-25 Lunjun Zhang , Shuo Han , Hanrui Lyu , Bradly C Stadie

Opponent modelling has proven effective in enhancing the decision-making of the controlled agent by constructing models of opponent agents. However, existing methods often rely on access to the observations and actions of opponents, a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-03-25 Jing Sun , Shuo Chen , Cong Zhang , Yining Ma , Jie Zhang

A widely-used actor-critic reinforcement learning algorithm for continuous control, Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients (DDPG), suffers from the overestimation problem, which can negatively affect the performance. Although the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-20 Ling Pan , Qingpeng Cai , Longbo Huang

We develop a new policy gradient and actor-critic algorithm for solving mean-field control problems within a continuous time reinforcement learning setting. Our approach leverages a gradient-based representation of the value function,…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-09-11 Huyên Pham , Xavier Warin

We develop a deep learning model to effectively solve high-dimensional nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations (PDE). We follow Feynman-Kac formula to reformulate PDE into the equivalent stochastic control problem governed by a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-09 Xiaohan Zhang

This paper introduces the Active-Importance-Sampling Actor-Critic (AISAC) algorithm, an extension of the Actor-Critic framework for reducing variance in policy gradient estimation. AISAC optimizes the behavior policy to minimize gradient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Majid Molaei , Gabor Paczolay , Matteo Papini , Alberto Maria Metelli , Marcello Restelli

Quantum computing offers efficient encapsulation of high-dimensional states. In this work, we propose a novel quantum reinforcement learning approach that combines the Advantage Actor-Critic algorithm with variational quantum circuits by…

In current model-free reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, stability criteria based on sampling methods are commonly utilized to guide policy optimization. However, these criteria only guarantee the infinite-time convergence of the…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-10-16 Shengjie Wang , Fengbo Lan , Xiang Zheng , Yuxue Cao , Oluwatosin Oseni , Haotian Xu , Tao Zhang , Yang Gao

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-08-10 Tuomas Haarnoja , Aurick Zhou , Pieter Abbeel , Sergey Levine

Actor-critic (AC) algorithms are a class of model-free deep reinforcement learning algorithms, which have proven their efficacy in diverse domains, especially in solving continuous control problems. Improvement of exploration (action…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-04 Chayan Banerjee , Zhiyong Chen , Nasimul Noman

Large language model (LLM) agents -- LLMs that dynamically interact with an environment over long horizons -- have become an increasingly important area of research, enabling automation in complex tasks involving tool-use, web browsing, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Joey Hong , Kang Liu , Zhan Ling , Jiecao Chen , Sergey Levine

Optimal control problems with free terminal time present many challenges including nonsmooth and discontinuous control laws, irregular value functions, many local optima, and the curse of dimensionality. To overcome these issues, we propose…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-08 Evan Burton , Tenavi Nakamura-Zimmerer , Qi Gong , Wei Kang

Online reinforcement learning (RL) with complex function approximations such as transformers and deep neural networks plays a significant role in the modern practice of artificial intelligence. Despite its popularity and importance,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-30 Tong Yang , Bo Dai , Lin Xiao , Yuejie Chi

The actor-critic (AC) algorithm is a popular method to find an optimal policy in reinforcement learning. In the infinite horizon scenario, the finite-sample convergence rate for the AC and natural actor-critic (NAC) algorithms has been…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-02-15 Tengyu Xu , Zhe Wang , Yingbin Liang