Related papers: Successive Convex Approximation Based Off-Policy O…

We present a new algorithm based on posterior sampling for learning in Constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDP) in the infinite-horizon undiscounted setting. The algorithm achieves near-optimal regret bounds while being advantageous…

A popular perspective in Reinforcement learning (RL) casts the problem as probabilistic inference on a graphical model of the Markov decision process (MDP). The core object of study is the probability of each state-action pair being visited…

While large language models (LLMs) have recently made tremendous progress towards solving challenging AI problems, they have done so at increasingly steep computational and API costs. We propose a novel strategy where we combine multiple…

We present Anchored Direct Preference Optimization (ADPO), a policy alignment method derived from first principles of KL-regularized reinforcement learning. Unlike standard approaches that treat the reference policy merely as a regularizer,…

The naive application of Reinforcement Learning algorithms to continuous control problems -- such as locomotion and manipulation -- often results in policies which rely on high-amplitude, high-frequency control signals, known colloquially…

We consider the problem of designing policies for Markov decision processes (MDPs) with dynamic coherent risk objectives and constraints. We begin by formulating the problem in a Lagrangian framework. Under the assumption that the risk…

In this paper, we consider a modified version of the control problem in a model free Markov decision process (MDP) setting with large state and action spaces. The control problem most commonly addressed in the contemporary literature is to…

Contrastive reinforcement learning (CRL) learns goal-conditioned Q-values through a contrastive objective over state-action and goal representations, removing the need for hand-crafted reward functions. Despite impressive success in…

This paper studies the remote estimation of multiple Markov sources over a lossy and rate-constrained channel. Unlike most existing studies that treat all source states equally, we exploit the \emph{semantics of information} and consider…

Functional constrained optimization is becoming more and more important in machine learning and operations research. Such problems have potential applications in risk-averse machine learning, semisupervised learning, and robust optimization…

In a discounted reward Markov Decision Process (MDP), the objective is to find the optimal value function, i.e., the value function corresponding to an optimal policy. This problem reduces to solving a functional equation known as the…

To solve real-world expensive constrained multi-objective optimization problems (ECMOPs), surrogate/approximation models are commonly incorporated in evolutionary algorithms to pre-select promising candidate solutions for evaluation.…

For large uncertain systems, solving model predictive control problems online can be computationally taxing. Using a shorter prediction horizon can help, but may lead to poor performance and instability without appropriate modifications.…

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are the defacto frame-work for sequential decision making in the presence ofstochastic uncertainty. A classical optimization criterion forMDPs is to maximize the expected discounted-sum pay-off, which…

Safety and trustworthiness are indispensable requirements for real-world applications of AI systems using large language models (LLMs). This paper formulates human value alignment as an optimization problem of the language model policy to…

Safe reinforcement learning (RL) aims to learn policies that satisfy certain constraints before deploying them to safety-critical applications. Previous primal-dual style approaches suffer from instability issues and lack optimality…

We study a generalization of the Online Convex Optimization (OCO) framework with time-varying adversarial constraints. In this setting, at each round, the learner selects an action from a convex decision set $X$, after which both a convex…

Hyperparameter optimization (HPO) is generally treated as a bi-level optimization problem that involves fitting a (probabilistic) surrogate model to a set of observed hyperparameter responses, e.g. validation loss, and consequently…

Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) has emerged as a promising paradigm for post-training reasoning models. However, group-based methods such as Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) face a critical dilemma in…

Safe reinforcement learning (RL) studies problems where an intelligent agent has to not only maximize reward but also avoid exploring unsafe areas. In this study, we propose CUP, a novel policy optimization method based on Constrained…