Related papers: Model-Agnostic Meta-Policy Optimization via Zeroth…

We propose a novel gradient-based online optimization framework for solving stochastic programming problems that frequently arise in the context of cyber-physical and robotic systems. Our problem formulation accommodates constraints that…

Gradient-based learning in multi-agent systems is difficult because the gradient derives from a first-order model which does not account for the interaction between agents' learning processes. LOLA (arXiv:1709.04326) accounts for this by…

Black-box algorithms are designed to optimize functions without relying on their underlying analytical structure or gradient information, making them essential when gradients are inaccessible or difficult to compute. Traditional methods for…

Many recent theoretical works on \emph{meta-learning} aim to achieve guarantees in leveraging similar representational structures from related tasks towards simplifying a target task. The main aim of theoretical guarantees on the subject is…

The success of automated driving deployment is highly depending on the ability to develop an efficient and safe driving policy. The problem is well formulated under the framework of optimal control as a cost optimization problem. Model…

In this work, we consider methods for solving large-scale optimization problems with a possibly nonsmooth objective function. The key idea is to first specify a class of optimization algorithms using a generic iterative scheme involving…

We study the problem of efficiently estimating policies that simultaneously optimize multiple objectives in reinforcement learning (RL). Given $n$ objectives (or tasks), we seek the optimal partition of these objectives into $k \ll n$…

Meta Learning automates the search for learning algorithms. At the same time, it creates a dependency on human engineering on the meta-level, where meta learning algorithms need to be designed. In this paper, we investigate self-referential…

In this paper, we show how to transform any optimization problem that arises from fitting a machine learning model into one that (1) detects and removes contaminated data from the training set while (2) simultaneously fitting the trimmed…

The no free lunch theorem states that no model is better suited to every problem. A question that arises from this is how to design methods that propose optimizers tailored to specific problems achieving state-of-the-art performance. This…

Combining model-based and model-free learning systems has been shown to improve the sample efficiency of learning to perform complex robotic tasks. However, dual-system approaches fail to consider the reliability of the learned model when…

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding a meta-learning online control algorithm that can learn across the tasks when faced with a sequence of $N$ (similar) control tasks. Each task involves controlling a linear dynamical system…

Optimizing functions without access to gradients is the remit of black-box methods such as evolution strategies. While highly general, their learning dynamics are often times heuristic and inflexible - exactly the limitations that…

This paper studies stochastic minimization of a finite-sum loss $ F (\mathbf{x}) = \frac{1}{N} \sum_{\xi=1}^N f(\mathbf{x};\xi) $. In many real-world scenarios, the Hessian matrix of such objectives exhibits a low-rank structure on a batch…

Zeroth-order optimization aims to minimize an objective function using only function evaluations, and is therefore fundamental in black-box optimization, hyperparameter tuning, bandit learning, and adversarial machine learning. While…

We propose an Adagrad-like algorithm for multi-objective unconstrained optimization that relies on the computation of a common descent direction only. Unlike classical local algorithms for multi-objective optimization, our approach does not…

Despite the empirical success of the actor-critic algorithm, its theoretical understanding lags behind. In a broader context, actor-critic can be viewed as an online alternating update algorithm for bilevel optimization, whose convergence…

We study the adaptive control of an unknown linear system with a quadratic cost function subject to safety constraints on both the states and actions. The challenges of this problem arise from the tension among safety, exploration,…

Machine Learning algorithms have been extensively researched throughout the last decade, leading to unprecedented advances in a broad range of applications, such as image classification and reconstruction, object recognition, and text…

Autonomous agents interacting with the real world need to learn new concepts efficiently and reliably. This requires learning in a low-data regime, which is a highly challenging problem. We address this task by introducing a fast…