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Large scale reinforcement learning has become a central tool for improving reasoning in large language models. At this scale, generation is often lagged or asynchronous, so updates are performed on data collected by older policies. This…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Otmane Sakhi , Aleksei Arzhantsev , Imad Aouali , Flavian Vasile

Offline policy learning is aimed at learning decision-making policies using existing datasets of trajectories without collecting additional data. The primary motivation for using reinforcement learning (RL) instead of supervised learning…

Offline reinforcement learning aims to learn an agent from pre-collected datasets, avoiding unsafe and inefficient real-time interaction. However, inevitable access to out-ofdistribution actions during the learning process introduces…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-03-06 Fan Zhang , Baoru Huang , Xin Zhang

We investigate the theoretical aspects of offline reinforcement learning (RL) under general function approximation. While prior works (e.g., Xie et al., 2021) have established the theoretical foundations of learning a good policy from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Xiang Li , Yuheng Zhang , Nan Jiang

We study offline reinforcement learning (RL) which seeks to learn a good policy based on a fixed, pre-collected dataset. A fundamental challenge behind this task is the distributional shift due to the dataset lacking sufficient exploration,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-11 Wenzhuo Zhou

Bootstrapping large language models (LLMs) through preference-based policy optimization offers a promising direction for aligning model behavior with human preferences without relying on extensive manual annotations. In this work, we…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-12-25 Chen Jia

Dynamic treatment regimes (DTRs) provide a principled framework for optimizing sequential decision-making in domains where decisions must adapt over time in response to individual trajectories, such as healthcare, education, and digital…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-01-30 Ruijia Zhang , Xiangyu Zhang , Zhengling Qi , Yue Wu , Yanxun Xu

Offline reinforcement learning (RL) aims to learn decision policies from a fixed batch of logged transitions, without additional environment interaction. Despite remarkable empirical progress, offline RL remains fragile under distribution…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-16 Debashis Chatterjee

We present a new approach to the problems of evaluating and learning personalized decision policies from observational data of past contexts, decisions, and outcomes. Only the outcome of the enacted decision is available and the historical…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-04 Nathan Kallus

We study model-based offline Reinforcement Learning with general function approximation without a full coverage assumption on the offline data distribution. We present an algorithm named Constrained Pessimistic Policy Optimization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-11 Masatoshi Uehara , Wen Sun

Policy learning using historical observational data is an important problem that has found widespread applications. Examples include selecting offers, prices, advertisements to send to customers, as well as selecting which medication to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-13 Nian Si , Fan Zhang , Zhengyuan Zhou , Jose Blanchet

In this paper, we propose an online learning-based predictive control (LPC) approach designed for nonlinear systems that lack explicit system dynamics. Unlike traditional model predictive control (MPC) algorithms that rely on known system…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-17 Yuanqing Zhang , Huanshui Zhang

Offline RL algorithms must account for the fact that the dataset they are provided may leave many facets of the environment unknown. The most common way to approach this challenge is to employ pessimistic or conservative methods, which…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-06 Dibya Ghosh , Anurag Ajay , Pulkit Agrawal , Sergey Levine

We study offline reinforcement learning (RL) in partially observable Markov decision processes. In particular, we aim to learn an optimal policy from a dataset collected by a behavior policy which possibly depends on the latent state. Such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-02 Miao Lu , Yifei Min , Zhaoran Wang , Zhuoran Yang

Ensuring AI models align with human values is essential for their safety and functionality. Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) leverages human preferences to achieve this alignment. However, when preferences are sourced from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-10 Ryan Bahlous-Boldi , Li Ding , Lee Spector , Scott Niekum

Policy learning utilizing observational data is pivotal across various domains, with the objective of learning the optimal treatment assignment policy while adhering to specific constraints such as fairness, budget, and simplicity. This…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-10-12 Pan Zhao , Antoine Chambaz , Julie Josse , Shu Yang

In this paper, we study distributionally robust offline reinforcement learning (robust offline RL), which seeks to find an optimal policy purely from an offline dataset that can perform well in perturbed environments. In specific, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-23 Jose Blanchet , Miao Lu , Tong Zhang , Han Zhong

Model-based algorithms, which learn a dynamics model from logged experience and perform some sort of pessimistic planning under the learned model, have emerged as a promising paradigm for offline reinforcement learning (offline RL).…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-28 Tianhe Yu , Aviral Kumar , Rafael Rafailov , Aravind Rajeswaran , Sergey Levine , Chelsea Finn

Learning optimal policies from historical data enables personalization in a wide variety of applications including healthcare, digital recommendations, and online education. The growing policy learning literature focuses on settings where…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-11-17 Ruohan Zhan , Zhimei Ren , Susan Athey , Zhengyuan Zhou

Offline policy optimization could have a large impact on many real-world decision-making problems, as online learning may be infeasible in many applications. Importance sampling and its variants are a commonly used type of estimator in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-05 Yao Liu , Yannis Flet-Berliac , Emma Brunskill