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Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at in-context learning (ICL), a supervised learning technique that relies on adding annotated examples to the model context. We investigate a contextual bandit version of in-context reinforcement learning…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-09-30 Giovanni Monea , Antoine Bosselut , Kianté Brantley , Yoav Artzi

Large-scale neural language models exhibit a remarkable capacity for in-context learning (ICL): they can infer novel functions from datasets provided as input. Most of our current understanding of when and how ICL arises comes from LMs…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-01-31 Ekin Akyürek , Bailin Wang , Yoon Kim , Jacob Andreas

We investigate training strategies that co-develop in-context learning (ICL) and in-weights learning (IWL), and the ability to switch between them based on context relevance. Although current LLMs exhibit both modes, standard task-specific…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-03 Deeptanshu Malu , Deevyanshu Malu , Aditya Nemiwal , Sunita Sarawagi

Recent advancements in language models have demonstrated remarkable in-context learning abilities, prompting the exploration of in-context reinforcement learning (ICRL) to extend the promise to decision domains. Due to involving more…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-02-09 Jinmei Liu , Fuhong Liu , Zhenhong Sun , Jianye Hao , Huaxiong Li , Bo Wang , Daoyi Dong , Chunlin Chen , Zhi Wang

It has recently been demonstrated empirically that in-context learning emerges in transformers when certain distributional properties are present in the training data, but this ability can also diminish upon further training. We provide a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-29 Bryan Chan , Xinyi Chen , András György , Dale Schuurmans

Imitation Learning (IL) has proven highly effective for robotic and control tasks where manually designing reward functions or explicit controllers is infeasible. However, standard IL methods implicitly assume that the environment dynamics…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-12 Rishabh Agrawal , Yusuf Alvi , Rahul Jain , Ashutosh Nayyar

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable proficiency in in-context learning (ICL), where models adapt to new tasks through example-based prompts without requiring parameter updates. However, understanding how tasks are…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-11-11 Baturay Saglam , Xinyang Hu , Zhuoran Yang , Dionysis Kalogerias , Amin Karbasi

We are interested in learning robust models from insufficient data, without the need for any externally pre-trained checkpoints. First, compared to sufficient data, we show why insufficient data renders the model more easily biased to the…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2022-09-07 Tan Wang , Qianru Sun , Sugiri Pranata , Karlekar Jayashree , Hanwang Zhang

Large language models (LLMs) have shown an impressive ability to perform a wide range of tasks using in-context learning (ICL), where a few examples are used to describe a task to the model. However, the performance of ICL varies…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-06-25 Keqin Peng , Liang Ding , Yancheng Yuan , Xuebo Liu , Min Zhang , Yuanxin Ouyang , Dacheng Tao

We demonstrate how an evolutionary algorithm can be extended with a curriculum learning process that selects automatically the environmental conditions in which the evolving agents are evaluated. The environmental conditions are selected so…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2021-02-18 Nicola Milano , Stefano Nolfi

Evolution in time-varying environments naturally leads to adaptable biological systems that can easily switch functionalities. Advances in the synthesis of environmentally-responsive materials therefore open up the possibility of creating a…

The remarkable ability of transformers to learn new concepts solely by reading examples within the input prompt, termed in-context learning (ICL), is a crucial aspect of intelligent behavior. Here, we focus on understanding the learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-14 Sara Dragutinović , Andrew M. Saxe , Aaditya K. Singh

We consider learning from labeled data collected across multiple environments, where the data distribution may vary across these environments. This problem is commonly approached from a causal perspective, seeking invariant representations…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-04-30 Yuli Slavutsky , David M. Blei

For AI systems to be useful to humans, they must understand and act in accordance with our values and preferences. Since specifying preferences is a hard task, inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) aims to develop methods that allow for…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-12 Karim Abdel Sadek , Mark Bedaywi , Rhys Gould , Stuart Russell

We perform in-depth evaluations of in-context learning (ICL) on state-of-the-art transformer, state-space, and hybrid large language models over two categories of knowledge-based ICL tasks. Using a combination of behavioral probing and…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-02 Shenran Wang , Timothy Tin-Long Tse , Jian Zhu

Iterative Learning Control (ILC) is a technique for adaptive feed-forward control of electro-mechanical plant that either performs programmed periodic behavior or rejects quasi-periodic disturbances. For example, ILC can suppress…

Accelerator Physics · Physics 2023-04-19 Shane Koscielniak

As humans, our goals and our environment are persistently changing throughout our lifetime based on our experiences, actions, and internal and external drives. In contrast, typical reinforcement learning problem set-ups consider decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-19 Annie Xie , James Harrison , Chelsea Finn

Before AI and neural nets, the excitement was about iterative learning control (ILC): the idea to train robots to perform repetitive tasks or train a system to reject quasi-periodic disturbances. The excitement waned after the discovery of…

Accelerator Physics · Physics 2022-10-14 Shane Rupert Koscielniak

Evolution and learning are two of the fundamental mechanisms by which life adapts in order to survive and to transcend limitations. These biological phenomena inspired successful computational methods such as evolutionary algorithms and…

Neural and Evolutionary Computing · Computer Science 2019-05-10 Jan Schuchardt , Vladimir Golkov , Daniel Cremers

Large pre-trained sequence models, such as transformer-based architectures, have been recently shown to have the capacity to carry out in-context learning (ICL). In ICL, a decision on a new input is made via a direct mapping of the input…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2024-01-23 Matteo Zecchin , Kai Yu , Osvaldo Simeone