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Reinforcement learning (RL) has traditionally been understood from an episodic perspective; the concept of non-episodic RL, where there is no restart and therefore no reliable recovery, remains elusive. A fundamental question in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-05-31 Shuang Liu , Hao Su

Bayesian optimization (BO) with preference-based feedback has recently garnered significant attention due to its emerging applications. We refer to this problem as Bayesian Optimization from Human Feedback (BOHF), which differs from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-30 Aya Kayal , Sattar Vakili , Laura Toni , Da-shan Shiu , Alberto Bernacchia

Recent developments in digital platforms have highlighted the prevalence of open systems, where agents can arrive and depart over time. While bandit learning in open systems has recently received initial attention, existing work imposes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-08 Mengfan Xu

In the Bayesian approach to sequential decision making, exact calculation of the (subjective) utility is intractable. This extends to most special cases of interest, such as reinforcement learning problems. While utility bounds are known to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2011-11-14 Christos Dimitrakakis

This is a brief technical note to clarify the state of lower bounds on regret for reinforcement learning. In particular, this paper: - Reproduces a lower bound on regret for reinforcement learning, similar to the result of Theorem 5 in the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-08-10 Ian Osband , Benjamin Van Roy

We consider the fixed-budget best arm identification problem with rewards following normal distributions. In this problem, the forecaster is given $K$ arms (or treatments) and $T$ time steps. The forecaster attempts to find the arm with the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-04-16 Junpei Komiyama

We study the repeated principal-agent bandit game, where the principal indirectly interacts with the unknown environment by proposing incentives for the agent to play arms. Most existing work assumes the agent has full knowledge of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-03 Junyan Liu , Lillian J. Ratliff

Reliable long-horizon value prediction is difficult in offline reinforcement learning because fitted value methods combine bootstrapping, function approximation, and distribution shift, while standard guarantees often require Bellman…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-11 Lars van der Laan , Nathan Kallus

We derive a family of risk-sensitive reinforcement learning methods for agents, who face sequential decision-making tasks in uncertain environments. By applying a utility function to the temporal difference (TD) error, nonlinear…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2014-10-10 Yun Shen , Michael J. Tobia , Tobias Sommer , Klaus Obermayer

A natural goal when designing online learning algorithms for non-stationary environments is to bound the regret of the algorithm in terms of the temporal variation of the input sequence. Intuitively, when the variation is small, it should…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-08 Gautam Goel , Babak Hassibi

This paper investigates how a Bayesian reinforcement learning method can be used to create a tactical decision-making agent for autonomous driving in an intersection scenario, where the agent can estimate the confidence of its recommended…

Robotics · Computer Science 2020-11-04 Carl-Johan Hoel , Tommy Tram , Jonas Sjöberg

The quintessential model-based reinforcement-learning agent iteratively refines its estimates or prior beliefs about the true underlying model of the environment. Recent empirical successes in model-based reinforcement learning with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-07 Dilip Arumugam , Benjamin Van Roy

While numerous works have focused on devising efficient algorithms for reinforcement learning (RL) with uniformly bounded rewards, it remains an open question whether sample or time-efficient algorithms for RL with large state-action space…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-08 Jiayi Huang , Han Zhong , Liwei Wang , Lin F. Yang

In an infinitely repeated general-sum pricing game, independent reinforcement learners may exhibit collusive behavior without any communication, raising concerns about algorithmic collusion. To better understand the learning dynamics, we…

General Economics · Economics 2025-10-07 Bingyan Han

In standard reinforcement learning (RL), a learning agent seeks to optimize the overall reward. However, many key aspects of a desired behavior are more naturally expressed as constraints. For instance, the designer may want to limit the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-29 Sobhan Miryoosefi , Kianté Brantley , Hal Daumé , Miroslav Dudik , Robert Schapire

Strong worst-case performance bounds for episodic reinforcement learning exist but fortunately in practice RL algorithms perform much better than such bounds would predict. Algorithms and theory that provide strong problem-dependent bounds…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-11-05 Andrea Zanette , Emma Brunskill

We consider the problem of preference based reinforcement learning (PbRL), where, unlike traditional reinforcement learning, an agent receives feedback only in terms of a 1 bit (0/1) preference over a trajectory pair instead of absolute…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-07 Aldo Pacchiano , Aadirupa Saha , Jonathan Lee

Boltzmann exploration is a classic strategy for sequential decision-making under uncertainty, and is one of the most standard tools in Reinforcement Learning (RL). Despite its widespread use, there is virtually no theoretical understanding…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-11-08 Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi , Claudio Gentile , Gábor Lugosi , Gergely Neu

We consider the exploration/exploitation problem in reinforcement learning. For exploitation, it is well known that the Bellman equation connects the value at any time-step to the expected value at subsequent time-steps. In this paper we…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-10-23 Brendan O'Donoghue , Ian Osband , Remi Munos , Volodymyr Mnih

In unsupervised environment design, reinforcement learning agents are trained on environment configurations (levels) generated by an adversary that maximises some objective. Regret is a commonly used objective that theoretically results in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-11 Michael Beukman , Samuel Coward , Michael Matthews , Mattie Fellows , Minqi Jiang , Michael Dennis , Jakob Foerster