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Related papers: Reward Compatibility: A Framework for Inverse RL

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In inverse reinforcement learning (IRL), a learning agent infers a reward function encoding the underlying task using demonstrations from experts. However, many existing IRL techniques make the often unrealistic assumption that the agent…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-04 Franck Djeumou , Christian Ellis , Murat Cubuktepe , Craig Lennon , Ufuk Topcu

Two main challenges in Reinforcement Learning (RL) are designing appropriate reward functions and ensuring the safety of the learned policy. To address these challenges, we present a theoretical framework for Inverse Reinforcement Learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-02 Andreas Schlaginhaufen , Maryam Kamgarpour

We consider a setting for Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) where the learner is extended with the ability to actively select multiple environments, observing an agent's behavior on each environment. We first demonstrate that if the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2016-01-26 Kareem Amin , Satinder Singh

Alignment is vital for safely deploying large language models (LLMs). Existing techniques are either reward-based (training a reward model on preference pairs and optimizing with reinforcement learning) or reward-free (directly fine-tuning…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Ruoxi Cheng , Haoxuan Ma , Weixin Wang , Ranjie Duan , Jiexi Liu , Xiaoshuang Jia , Simeng Qin , Xiaochun Cao , Yang Liu , Xiaojun Jia

Offline inverse reinforcement learning (Offline IRL) aims to recover the structure of rewards and environment dynamics that underlie observed actions in a fixed, finite set of demonstrations from an expert agent. Accurate models of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-01 Siliang Zeng , Chenliang Li , Alfredo Garcia , Mingyi Hong

In Reward Learning (ReL), we are given feedback on an unknown target reward, and the goal is to use this information to recover it in order to carry out some downstream application, e.g., planning. When the feedback is not informative…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-16 Filippo Lazzati , Alberto Maria Metelli

The aim of Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) is to infer a reward function $R$ from a policy $\pi$. To do this, we need a model of how $\pi$ relates to $R$. In the current literature, the most common models are optimality, Boltzmann…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-27 Joar Skalse , Alessandro Abate

Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is the problem of inferring a reward function from expert behavior. There are several approaches to IRL, but most are designed to learn a Markovian reward. However, a reward function might be…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-21 Noah Topper , Alvaro Velasquez , George Atia

In the context of inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) with a single expert, adversarial inverse reinforcement learning (AIRL) serves as a foundational approach to providing comprehensive and transferable task descriptions. However, AIRL…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-12-31 Yangchun Zhang , Wang Zhou , Yirui Zhou

We study the problem of generalizing an expert agent's behavior, provided through demonstrations, to new environments and/or additional constraints. Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) offers a promising solution by seeking to recover the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-16 Filippo Lazzati , Alberto Maria Metelli

Acquiring complex behaviors is essential for artificially intelligent agents, yet learning these behaviors in high-dimensional settings poses a significant challenge due to the vast search space. Traditional reinforcement learning (RL)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-22 Mert Albaba , Sammy Christen , Thomas Langarek , Christoph Gebhardt , Otmar Hilliges , Michael J. Black

The goal of the Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) task is to identify the underlying reward function and the corresponding optimal policy from a set of expert demonstrations. While most IRL algorithms' theoretical guarantees rely on a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-03-25 Ruijia Zhang , Siliang Zeng , Chenliang Li , Alfredo Garcia , Mingyi Hong

Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) describes the problem of learning an unknown reward function of a Markov Decision Process (MDP) from observed behavior of an agent. Since the agent's behavior originates in its policy and MDP policies…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2016-04-14 Michael Herman , Tobias Gindele , Jörg Wagner , Felix Schmitt , Wolfram Burgard

In Imitation Learning (IL), utilizing suboptimal and heterogeneous demonstrations presents a substantial challenge due to the varied nature of real-world data. However, standard IL algorithms consider these datasets as homogeneous, thereby…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-16 Mark Beliaev , Ramtin Pedarsani

Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) learns a reward function and a corresponding policy that best fit the demonstration data of an expert. However, in the current IRL setting, the learner is isolated from the expert and can only passively…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Yue Mao , Shicheng Liu , Siyuan Xu , Minghui Zhu

We study the problem of inverse reinforcement learning (IRL), where the learning agent recovers a reward function using expert demonstrations. Most of the existing IRL techniques make the often unrealistic assumption that the agent has…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-20 Franck Djeumou , Murat Cubuktepe , Craig Lennon , Ufuk Topcu

In inverse reinforcement learning (IRL), an agent seeks to replicate expert demonstrations through interactions with the environment. Traditionally, IRL is treated as an adversarial game, where an adversary searches over reward models, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-23 Arnav Kumar Jain , Harley Wiltzer , Jesse Farebrother , Irina Rish , Glen Berseth , Sanjiban Choudhury

Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is computationally challenging, with common approaches requiring the solution of multiple reinforcement learning (RL) sub-problems. This work motivates the use of potential-based reward shaping to reduce…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-19 Lauren H. Cooke , Harvey Klyne , Edwin Zhang , Cassidy Laidlaw , Milind Tambe , Finale Doshi-Velez

Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) are pivotal methodologies in reward learning, which involve inferring and shaping the underlying reward function of sequential decision-making…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-16 Kihyun Kim , Jiawei Zhang , Asuman Ozdaglar , Pablo A. Parrilo

While most approaches to the problem of Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) focus on estimating a reward function that best explains an expert agent's policy or demonstrated behavior on a control task, it is often the case that such…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-05-01 Dexter R. R. Scobee , S. Shankar Sastry