Related papers: Near-Optimal Sample Complexity for Iterated CVaR R…
We study risk-sensitive reinforcement learning in episodic Markov decision processes with unknown transition kernels, where the goal is to optimize the total reward under the risk measure of exponential utility. We propose two provably…
Model-based reinforcement learning (RL), which finds an optimal policy using an empirical model, has long been recognized as one of the corner stones of RL. It is especially suitable for multi-agent RL (MARL), as it naturally decouples the…
Adaptive sampling algorithms are modern and efficient methods that dynamically adjust the sample size throughout the optimization process. However, they may encounter difficulties in risk-averse settings, particularly due to the challenge…
We study risk-sensitive reinforcement learning in finite discounted MDPs with recursive entropic risk measures (ERM), where the risk parameter $\beta \neq 0$ controls the agent's risk attitude: $\beta>0$ for risk-averse and $\beta<0$ for…
The entropic value-at-risk (EVaR) is a new coherent risk measure, which is an upper bound for both the value-at-risk (VaR) and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). As important properties, the EVaR is strongly monotone over its domain and…
Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) seeks to learn the reward function from expert trajectories, to understand the task for imitation or collaboration thereby removing the need for manual reward engineering. However, IRL in the context of…
Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) usually assumes the reward function model is pre-specified as a weighted sum of features and estimates the weighting parameters only. However, how to select features and determine a proper reward model…
Improving the sample efficiency in reinforcement learning has been a long-standing research problem. In this work, we aim to reduce the sample complexity of existing policy gradient methods. We propose a novel policy gradient algorithm…
Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is the task of finding a reward function that generates a desired optimal policy for a given Markov Decision Process (MDP). This paper develops an information-theoretic lower bound for the sample…
We consider a regularized expected reward optimization problem in the non-oblivious setting that covers many existing problems in reinforcement learning (RL). In order to solve such an optimization problem, we apply and analyze the…
We study a linear-quadratic, optimal control problem on a discrete, finite time horizon with distributional ambiguity, in which the cost is assessed via Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR). We take steps toward deriving a scalable dynamic…
We study model-based reinforcement learning in an unknown finite communicating Markov decision process. We propose a simple algorithm that leverages a variance based confidence interval. We show that the proposed algorithm, UCRL-V, achieves…
Multi-objective reinforcement learning (MORL) is an extension of ordinary, single-objective reinforcement learning (RL) that is applicable to many real-world tasks where multiple objectives exist without known relative costs. We study the…
This paper studies mean-risk portfolio optimization models using the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) as a risk measure. We also employ a cardinality constraint for limiting the number of invested assets. Solving such a…
We study the offline reinforcement learning (offline RL) problem, where the goal is to learn a reward-maximizing policy in an unknown Markov Decision Process (MDP) using the data coming from a policy $\mu$. In particular, we consider the…
Value-at-Risk (VaR) and Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) are popular risk measures from academic, industrial and regulatory perspectives. The problem of minimizing CVaR is theoretically known to be of Neyman-Pearson type binary solution. We…
Invariant risk minimization (IRM) aims to enable out-of-distribution (OOD) generalization in deep learning by learning invariant representations. As IRM poses an inherently challenging bi-level optimization problem, most existing approaches…
In safety-critical decision-making, the environment may evolve over time, and the learner adjusts its risk level accordingly. This work investigates risk-averse online optimization in dynamic environments with varying risk levels, employing…
In contrast to the advances in characterizing the sample complexity for solving Markov decision processes (MDPs), the optimal statistical complexity for solving constrained MDPs (CMDPs) remains unknown. We resolve this question by providing…
When optimising for conditional value at risk (CVaR) using policy gradients (PG), current methods rely on discarding a large proportion of trajectories, resulting in poor sample efficiency. We propose a reformulation of the CVaR…