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Related papers: Towards Causal Model-Based Policy Optimization

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Diffusion models excel at sampling from complex, unnormalized distributions. In this work, we extend Maximum Entropy Reinforcement Learning (ME-RL) to diffusion processes, enabling sampling from the optimal policy trajectory distribution.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Sebastian Sanokowski , Kaustubh Patil

Optimal decision-making under partial observability requires agents to balance reducing uncertainty (exploration) against pursuing immediate objectives (exploitation). In this paper, we introduce a novel policy optimization framework for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-05 Hany Abdulsamad , Sahel Iqbal , Simo Särkkä

Deep reinforcement learning algorithms can perform poorly in real-world tasks due to the discrepancy between source and target environments. This discrepancy is commonly viewed as the disturbance in transition dynamics. Many existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-21 Yufei Kuang , Miao Lu , Jie Wang , Qi Zhou , Bin Li , Houqiang Li

Over the recent years, reinforcement learning (RL) starts to show promising results in tackling combinatorial optimization (CO) problems, in particular when coupled with curriculum learning to facilitate training. Despite emerging empirical…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-07 Runlong Zhou , Zelin He , Yuandong Tian , Yi Wu , Simon S. Du

Reinforcement learning has demonstrated impressive performance in various challenging problems such as robotics, board games, and classical arcade games. However, its real-world applications can be hindered by the absence of robustness and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-02 Siemen Herremans , Ali Anwar , Siegfried Mercelis

In Causal Bayesian Optimization (CBO), an agent intervenes on an unknown structural causal model to maximize a downstream reward variable. In this paper, we consider the generalization where other agents or external events also intervene on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-02 Scott Sussex , Pier Giuseppe Sessa , Anastasiia Makarova , Andreas Krause

In this paper, we propose a Model-Based Reinforcement Learning (MBRL) algorithm for Partially Measurable Systems (PMS), i.e., systems where the state can not be directly measured, but must be estimated through proper state observers. The…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-01-22 Fabio Amadio , Alberto Dalla Libera , Ruggero Carli , Daniel Nikovski , Diego Romeres

Engagement-optimized adaptive tutoring systems may prioritize short-term behavioral signals over sustained learning outcomes, creating structural incentives for reward hacking in reinforcement learning policies. We formalize this challenge…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-04-07 Oluseyi Olukola , Nick Rahimi

Differentiable planning enables gradient-based optimization of decision-making problems by leveraging differentiable models of system dynamics. However, in highly nonlinear and hybrid discrete-continuous domains, the resulting optimization…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-11 Yuval Aroosh , Ayal Taitler

This paper presents a framework to tackle constrained combinatorial optimization problems using deep Reinforcement Learning (RL). To this end, we extend the Neural Combinatorial Optimization (NCO) theory in order to deal with constraints in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-23 Ruben Solozabal , Josu Ceberio , Martin Takáč

In the reinforcement learning literature, there are many algorithms developed for either Contextual Bandit (CB) or Markov Decision Processes (MDP) environments. However, when deploying reinforcement learning algorithms in the real world,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-08-02 Kelly W. Zhang , Omer Gottesman , Finale Doshi-Velez

Methods for learning optimal policies use causal machine learning models to create human-interpretable rules for making choices around the allocation of different policy interventions. However, in realistic policy-making contexts,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-18 Patrick Rehill , Nicholas Biddle

Markov Decision Problems (MDPs) provide a foundational framework for modelling sequential decision-making across diverse domains, guided by optimality criteria such as discounted and average rewards. However, these criteria have inherent…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-08-26 Dibyangshu Mukherjee , Shivaram Kalyanakrishnan

Many sequential decision problems involve optimizing one objective function while imposing constraints on other objectives. Constrained Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (C-POMDP) model this case with transition uncertainty and…

We study policy optimization problems for deterministic Markov decision processes (MDPs) with metric state and action spaces, which we refer to as Metric Policy Optimization Problems (MPOPs). Our goal is to establish theoretical results on…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-07-14 Victor D. Dorobantu , Kamyar Azizzadenesheli , Yisong Yue

Markov decision processes (MDPs) are the defacto frame-work for sequential decision making in the presence ofstochastic uncertainty. A classical optimization criterion forMDPs is to maximize the expected discounted-sum pay-off, which…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-02-28 Tomas Brazdil , Krishnendu Chatterjee , Petr Novotny , Jiri Vahala

Reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms struggle with learning optimal policies for tasks where reward feedback is sparse and depends on a complex sequence of events in the environment. Probabilistic reward machines (PRMs) are finite-state…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-20 Jan Corazza , Hadi Partovi Aria , Daniel Neider , Zhe Xu

Offline reinforcement learning (RL) offers a powerful paradigm for data-driven control. Compared to model-free approaches, offline model-based RL (MBRL) explicitly learns a world model from a static dataset and uses it as a surrogate…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-02 Jiayu Chen , Le Xu , Aravind Venugopal , Jeff Schneider

The optimal policy in various real-world strategic decision-making problems depends both on the environmental configuration and exogenous events. For these settings, we introduce Contextual Bilevel Reinforcement Learning (CB-RL), a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-12-10 Vinzenz Thoma , Barna Pasztor , Andreas Krause , Giorgia Ramponi , Yifan Hu

In decision-making problems, the outcome of an intervention often depends on the causal relationships between system components and is highly costly to evaluate. In such settings, causal Bayesian optimization (CBO) can exploit the causal…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-02-21 Shriya Bhatija , Paul-David Zuercher , Jakob Thumm , Thomas Bohné