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Meta-reinforcement learning (Meta-RL) has attracted attention due to its capability to enhance reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms, in terms of data efficiency and generalizability. In this paper, we develop a bilevel optimization…
In this work, we present a simple yet theoretically motivated improvement to Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) for the Large Language Model (LLM), addressing its limited generalization compared to reinforcement learning (RL). Through…
We present a convergence rate analysis for biased stochastic gradient descent (SGD), where individual gradient updates are corrupted by computation errors. We develop stochastic quadratic constraints to formulate a small linear matrix…
In computational reinforcement learning, a growing body of work seeks to construct an agent's perception of the world through predictions of future sensations; predictions about environment observations are used as additional input features…
The power of foundation models (FMs) lies in their capacity to learn highly expressive representations that can be adapted to a broad spectrum of tasks. However, these pretrained models require additional training stages to become effective…
Multicalibration gradient boosting has recently emerged as a scalable method that empirically produces approximately multicalibrated predictors and has been deployed at web scale. Despite this empirical success, its convergence properties…
Model-based reinforcement learning (RL) is considered to be a promising approach to reduce the sample complexity that hinders model-free RL. However, the theoretical understanding of such methods has been rather limited. This paper…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is arguably the most important single algorithm in modern machine learning. Although SGD with unbiased gradient estimators has been studied extensively over at least half a century, SGD variants relying on…
Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR) replaces costly human labeling with automated verifiers. To reduce verifier hacking, many RLVR systems binarize rewards to $\{0,1\}$, but imperfect verifiers inevitably introduce…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a popular and efficient method with wide applications in training deep neural nets and other nonconvex models. While the behavior of SGD is well understood in the convex learning setting, the existing…
The recently proposed Unbiased Online Recurrent Optimization algorithm (UORO, arXiv:1702.05043) uses an unbiased approximation of RTRL to achieve fully online gradient-based learning in RNNs. In this work we analyze the variance of the…
Designing suitable reward functions for numerous interacting intelligent agents is challenging in real-world applications. Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) in mean field games (MFGs) offers a practical framework to infer reward…
Federated reinforcement learning (FRL) enables distributed learning of optimal policies while preserving local data privacy through gradient sharing.However, FRL faces the risk of data privacy leaks, where attackers exploit shared gradients…
Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) or verifiable rewards (RLVR), the standard paradigm for aligning LLMs or building recent SOTA reasoning models, is highly sensitive to noise from inconsistent or erroneous rewards. Yet, the…
At the heart of the standard deep learning training loop is a greedy gradient step minimizing a given loss. We propose to add a second step to maximize training generalization. To do this, we optimize the loss of the next training step.…
Learning in models with discrete latent variables is challenging due to high variance gradient estimators. Generally, approaches have relied on control variates to reduce the variance of the REINFORCE estimator. Recent work (Jang et al.…
Generative foundation models are susceptible to implicit biases that can arise from extensive unsupervised training data. Such biases can produce suboptimal samples, skewed outcomes, and unfairness, with potentially serious consequences.…
Neural networks are widely used to approximate unknown functions in control. A common neural network architecture uses a single hidden layer (i.e. a shallow network), in which the input parameters are fixed in advance and only the output…
Reparameterization (RP) and likelihood ratio (LR) gradient estimators are used throughout machine and reinforcement learning; however, they are usually explained as simple mathematical tricks without providing any insight into their nature.…
Reinforcement learning methods for robotics are increasingly successful due to the constant development of better policy gradient techniques. A precise (low variance) and accurate (low bias) gradient estimator is crucial to face…