Related papers: Nearly Minimax Optimal Regret for Learning Infinit…
We study algorithms for online linear optimization in Hilbert spaces, focusing on the case where the player is unconstrained. We develop a novel characterization of a large class of minimax algorithms, recovering, and even improving,…
Risk-averse total-reward Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) offer a promising framework for modeling and solving undiscounted infinite-horizon objectives. Existing model-based algorithms for risk measures like the entropic risk measure (ERM)…
While a large body of empirical results show that temporally-extended actions and options may significantly affect the learning performance of an agent, the theoretical understanding of how and when options can be beneficial in online…
The standard assumption in reinforcement learning (RL) is that agents observe feedback for their actions immediately. However, in practice feedback is often observed in delay. This paper studies online learning in episodic Markov decision…
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…
We study meta-reinforcement learning in finite-horizon MDPs where related tasks share similar structures in their optimal action-value functions. Specifically, we posit a linear representation $Q^*_h(s,a)=\Phi_h(s,a)\,\theta^{(k)}_h$ and…
We consider online learning for episodic stochastically constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs), which plays a central role in ensuring the safety of reinforcement learning. Here the loss function can vary arbitrarily across the…
We study infinite-horizon average-reward constrained Markov decision processes (CMDPs) under the unichain assumption and general policy parameterizations. Existing regret analyses for constrained reinforcement learning largely rely on…
We present the first finite time global convergence analysis of policy gradient in the context of infinite horizon average reward Markov decision processes (MDPs). Specifically, we focus on ergodic tabular MDPs with finite state and action…
The expected regret of any reinforcement learning algorithm is lower bounded by $\Omega\left(\sqrt{DXAT}\right)$ for undiscounted returns, where $D$ is the diameter of the Markov decision process, $X$ the size of the state space, $A$ the…
The curse of dimensionality renders Reinforcement Learning (RL) impractical in many real-world settings with exponentially large state and action spaces. Yet, many environments exhibit exploitable structure that can accelerate learning. To…
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…
We consider prediction with expert advice when data are generated from distributions varying arbitrarily within an unknown constraint set. This semi-adversarial setting includes (at the extremes) the classical i.i.d. setting, when the…
We establish that an optimistic variant of Q-learning applied to a fixed-horizon episodic Markov decision process with an aggregated state representation incurs regret $\tilde{\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{H^5 M K} + \epsilon HK)$, where $H$ is the…
We propose a black-box reduction that turns a certain reinforcement learning algorithm with optimal regret in a (near-)stationary environment into another algorithm with optimal dynamic regret in a non-stationary environment, importantly…
Representation learning is a powerful tool that enables learning over large multitudes of agents or domains by enforcing that all agents operate on a shared set of learned features. However, many robotics or controls applications that would…
Reinforcement learning (RL) in episodic, factored Markov decision processes (FMDPs) is studied. We propose an algorithm called FMDP-BF, which leverages the factorization structure of FMDP. The regret of FMDP-BF is shown to be exponentially…
Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) replaces hard-to-specify rewards with pairwise trajectory preferences, yet regret-oriented theory often assumes that preference labels are generated consistently from a single ground-truth…
We propose an epoch-based reinforcement learning algorithm for infinite-horizon average-cost Markov decision processes (MDPs) that leverages a partial order over a policy class. In this structure, $\pi' \leq \pi$ if data collected under…
We study a new class of MDPs that employs multinomial logit (MNL) function approximation to ensure valid probability distributions over the state space. Despite its significant benefits, incorporating the non-linear function raises…