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We show that offline actor-critic reinforcement learning can scale to large models - such as transformers - and follows similar scaling laws as supervised learning. We find that offline actor-critic algorithms can outperform strong,…

Establishing stability certificates for closed-loop systems under reinforcement learning (RL) policies is essential to move beyond empirical performance and offer guarantees of system behavior. Classical Lyapunov methods require a strict…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-13 Kehan Long , Jorge Cortés , Nikolay Atanasov

Quantum computing offers efficient encapsulation of high-dimensional states. In this work, we propose a novel quantum reinforcement learning approach that combines the Advantage Actor-Critic algorithm with variational quantum circuits by…

Learning in multi-agent environments is difficult due to the non-stationarity introduced by an opponent's or partner's changing behaviors. Instead of reactively adapting to the other agent's (opponent or partner) behavior, we propose an…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-10-18 Woodrow Z. Wang , Andy Shih , Annie Xie , Dorsa Sadigh

Task-oriented dialogue systems aim to fulfill user goals through natural language interactions. They are ideally evaluated with human users, which however is unattainable to do at every iteration of the development phase. Simulated users…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2022-09-05 Nurul Lubis , Christian Geishauser , Hsien-Chin Lin , Carel van Niekerk , Michael Heck , Shutong Feng , Milica Gašić

Current model-based reinforcement learning approaches use the model simply as a learned black-box simulator to augment the data for policy optimization or value function learning. In this paper, we show how to make more effective use of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-19 Ignasi Clavera , Violet Fu , Pieter Abbeel

Reinforcement learning (RL) has become the de facto method for achieving locomotion on humanoid robots in practice, yet stability analysis of the corresponding control policies is lacking. Recent work has attempted to merge control…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2026-05-07 Zachary Olkin , William D. Compton , Aaron D. Ames

Offline reinforcement learning, by learning from a fixed dataset, makes it possible to learn agent behaviors without interacting with the environment. However, depending on the quality of the offline dataset, such pre-trained agents may…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-26 Yi Zhao , Rinu Boney , Alexander Ilin , Juho Kannala , Joni Pajarinen

This paper proposes the Cooperative Soft Actor Critic (CSAC) method of enabling consecutive reinforcement learning agents to cooperatively solve a long time horizon multi-stage task. This method is achieved by modifying the policy of each…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-02 Jordan Erskine , Chris Lehnert

The increasing adoption of Reinforcement Learning in safety-critical systems domains such as autonomous vehicles, health, and aviation raises the need for ensuring their safety. Existing safety mechanisms such as adversarial training,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-11 Paulina Stevia Nouwou Mindom , Amin Nikanjam , Foutse Khomh , John Mullins

Actor-critic algorithms address the dual goals of reinforcement learning (RL), policy evaluation and improvement via two separate function approximators. The practicality of this approach comes at the expense of training instability, caused…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-11 Bahareh Tasdighi , Abdullah Akgül , Manuel Haussmann , Kenny Kazimirzak Brink , Melih Kandemir

Reinforcement learning (RL) in real-world safety-critical target settings like urban driving is hazardous, imperiling the RL agent, other agents, and the environment. To overcome this difficulty, we propose a "safety-critical adaptation"…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-19 Jesse Zhang , Brian Cheung , Chelsea Finn , Sergey Levine , Dinesh Jayaraman

Reinforcement learning, mathematically described by Markov Decision Problems, may be approached either through dynamic programming or policy search. Actor-critic algorithms combine the merits of both approaches by alternating between steps…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-31 Harshat Kumar , Alec Koppel , Alejandro Ribeiro

Reinforcement learning (RL) provides an appealing formalism for learning control policies from experience. However, the classic active formulation of RL necessitates a lengthy active exploration process for each behavior, making it…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-04-27 Ashvin Nair , Abhishek Gupta , Murtaza Dalal , Sergey Levine

Robots and autonomous agents often complete goal-based tasks with limited resources, relying on imperfect models and sensor measurements. In particular, reinforcement learning (RL) and feedback control can be used to help a robot achieve a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-09-26 Aleksandra Faust , James B. Aimone , Conrad D. James , Lydia Tapia

Intelligent agents must pursue their goals in complex environments with partial information and often limited computational capacity. Reinforcement learning methods have achieved great success by creating agents that optimize engineered…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-07 Alejandro Daniel Noel , Charel van Hoof , Beren Millidge

Value-based algorithms are a cornerstone of off-policy reinforcement learning due to their simplicity and training stability. However, their use has traditionally been restricted to discrete action spaces, as they rely on estimating…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-23 Yigit Korkmaz , Urvi Bhuwania , Ayush Jain , Erdem Bıyık

Offline reinforcement learning enables sample-efficient policy acquisition without risky online interaction, yet policies trained on static datasets remain brittle under action-space perturbations such as actuator faults. This study…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Shingo Ayabe , Hiroshi Kera , Kazuhiko Kawamoto

We introduce a reinforcement learning method for a class of non-Markov systems; our approach extends the actor-critic framework given by Rose et al. [New J. Phys. 23 013013 (2021)] for obtaining scaled cumulant generating functions…

Statistical Mechanics · Physics 2026-03-09 Venkata D. Pamulaparthy , Rosemary J. Harris

We consider an improper reinforcement learning setting where a learner is given $M$ base controllers for an unknown Markov decision process, and wishes to combine them optimally to produce a potentially new controller that can outperform…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-20 Mohammadi Zaki , Avinash Mohan , Aditya Gopalan , Shie Mannor