Related papers: Variance Reduced Advantage Estimation with $\delta…
This work focuses on the dynamic hedging of financial derivatives, where a reinforcement learning algorithm is designed to minimize the variance of the delta hedging process. In contrast to previous research in this area, we apply…
Training data attribution (TDA) provides insights into which training data is responsible for a learned model behavior. Gradient-based TDA methods such as influence functions and unrolled differentiation both involve a computation that…
Reinforcement learning has become a cornerstone technique for developing reasoning models in complex tasks, ranging from mathematical problem-solving to imaginary reasoning. The optimization of these models typically relies on policy…
Optimizing large language models for industrial sales requires balancing long-term commercial objectives (e.g., conversion rate) with immediate linguistic constraints such as fluency and compliance. Conventional reinforcement learning often…
Any reinforcement learning system must be able to identify which past events contributed to observed outcomes, a problem known as credit assignment. A common solution to this problem is to use an eligibility trace to assign credit to…
We consider the large sum of DC (Difference of Convex) functions minimization problem which appear in several different areas, especially in stochastic optimization and machine learning. Two DCA (DC Algorithm) based algorithms are proposed:…
Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) has held longstanding promise to advance reinforcement learning. Yet, it has remained a considerable challenge to develop practical algorithms that exhibit some of these promises. To improve our…
The difference-of-convex algorithm (DCA) is a well-established nonlinear programming technique that solves successive convex optimization problems. These sub-problems are obtained from the difference-of-convex~(DC) decompositions of the…
Current reinforcement learning algorithms train an agent using forward-generated trajectories, which provide little guidance so that the agent can explore as much as possible. While realizing the value of reinforcement learning results from…
How do we formalize the challenge of credit assignment in reinforcement learning? Common intuition would draw attention to reward sparsity as a key contributor to difficult credit assignment and traditional heuristics would look to temporal…
Sparse reward problems are one of the biggest challenges in Reinforcement Learning. Goal-directed tasks are one such sparse reward problems where a reward signal is received only when the goal is reached. One promising way to train an agent…
Reinforcement Learning (RL) has proven highly effective at enhancing the complex reasoning abilities of Large Language Models (LLMs), yet underlying mechanisms driving this success remain largely opaque. Our analysis reveals that puzzling…
Computer vision systems that are deployed in safety-critical applications need to quantify their output uncertainty. We study regression from images to parameter values and here it is common to detect uncertainty by predicting probability…
Policy gradient methods are appealing in deep reinforcement learning but suffer from high variance of gradient estimate. To reduce the variance, the state value function is applied commonly. However, the effect of the state value function…
The predominant approach in reinforcement learning is to assign credit to actions based on the expected return. However, we show that the return may depend on the policy in a way which could lead to excessive variance in value estimation…
This work studies the dynamic risk management of the risk-neutral value of the potential credit losses on a portfolio of derivatives. Sensitivities-based hedging of such liability is sub-optimal because of bid-ask costs, pricing models…
Present incremental learning methods are limited in the ability to achieve reliable credit assignment over a large number time steps (or events). However, this situation is typical for cases where the dynamical system to be controlled…
The Credit Assignment Problem (CAP) refers to the longstanding challenge of Reinforcement Learning (RL) agents to associate actions with their long-term consequences. Solving the CAP is a crucial step towards the successful deployment of RL…
Variational inference lies at the core of many state-of-the-art algorithms. To improve the approximation of the posterior beyond parametric families, it was proposed to include MCMC steps into the variational lower bound. In this work we…
Large Language Model (LLM) agents often face significant credit assignment challenges in long-horizon, multi-step tasks due to sparse rewards. Existing value-free methods, such as Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO), encounter two…