Related papers: Near-Optimal Sample Complexity for Iterated CVaR R…
In this paper, we study a novel episodic risk-sensitive Reinforcement Learning (RL) problem, named Iterated CVaR RL, which aims to maximize the tail of the reward-to-go at each step, and focuses on tightly controlling the risk of getting…
Risk-sensitive reinforcement learning (RL) aims to optimize policies that balance the expected reward and risk. In this paper, we present a novel risk-sensitive RL framework that employs an Iterated Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR)…
We study risk-sensitive Reinforcement Learning (RL), where we aim to maximize the Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) with a fixed risk tolerance $\tau$. Prior theoretical work studying risk-sensitive RL focuses on the tabular Markov Decision…
In this paper, we study risk-sensitive Reinforcement Learning (RL), focusing on the objective of Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) with risk tolerance $\tau$. Starting with multi-arm bandits (MABs), we show the minimax CVaR regret rate is…
Distributionally robust reinforcement learning (DR-RL) has recently gained significant attention as a principled approach that addresses discrepancies between training and testing environments. To balance robustness, conservatism, and…
Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) is a widely used risk-sensitive objective for learning under rare but high-impact losses, yet its statistical behavior under heavy-tailed data remains poorly understood. Unlike expectation-based risk, CVaR…
Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) is a prominent risk measure that is being used extensively in various domains. We develop a new formula for the gradient of the CVaR in the form of a conditional expectation. Based on this formula, we…
We propose a risk-averse statistical learning framework wherein the performance of a learning algorithm is evaluated by the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) of losses rather than the expected loss. We devise algorithms based on stochastic…
We study risk-sensitive reinforcement learning in finite discounted MDPs, where a generative model of the MDP is assumed to be available. We consider a family or risk measures called the optimized certainty equivalent (OCE), which includes…
In high-stakes machine learning applications, it is crucial to not only perform well on average, but also when restricted to difficult examples. To address this, we consider the problem of training models in a risk-averse manner. We propose…
We study a first-order primal-dual subgradient method to optimize risk-constrained risk-penalized optimization problems, where risk is modeled via the popular conditional value at risk (CVaR) measure. The algorithm processes independent and…
We consider the problem of learning a control policy that is robust against the parameter mismatches between the training environment and testing environment. We formulate this as a distributionally robust reinforcement learning (DR-RL)…
Distributional reinforcement learning (RL) -- in which agents learn about all the possible long-term consequences of their actions, and not just the expected value -- is of great recent interest. One of the most important affordances of a…
Mainstream approximate action-value iteration reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms suffer from overestimation bias, leading to suboptimal policies in high-variance stochastic environments. Quantile-based action-value iteration methods…
Conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) is a prominent risk measure in financial engineering, energy systems, and supply chain management. In these domains, Markov decision processes (MDPs) with a long-run CVaR criterion effectively mitigate cost…
Motivated by the prominence of Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) as a measure for tail risk in settings affected by uncertainty, we develop a new formula for approximating CVaR based optimization objectives and their gradients from limited…
We study learning algorithms that seek to minimize the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR), when all the learner knows is that the losses incurred may be heavy-tailed. We begin by studying a general-purpose estimator of CVaR for potentially…
Though deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has obtained substantial success, it may encounter catastrophic failures due to the intrinsic uncertainty of both transition and observation. Most of the existing methods for safe reinforcement…
Cross-validation (CV) is one of the most popular tools for assessing and selecting predictive models. However, standard CV suffers from high computational cost when the number of folds is large. Recently, under the empirical risk…
We study the sample complexity of reducing reinforcement learning to a sequence of empirical risk minimization problems over the policy space. Such reductions-based algorithms exhibit local convergence in the function space, as opposed to…