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Training a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) model with a sparse reward is generally difficult because numerous combinations of interactions among agents induce a certain outcome (i.e., success or failure). Earlier studies have…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-02-08 Heechang Ryu , Hayong Shin , Jinkyoo Park

Sequential decision-making agents struggle with long horizon tasks, since solving them requires multi-step reasoning. Most reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms address this challenge by improved credit assignment, introducing memory…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-04-04 Bogdan Mazoure , Jake Bruce , Doina Precup , Rob Fergus , Ankit Anand

A major challenge in reinforcement learning is the design of exploration strategies, especially for environments with sparse reward structures and continuous state and action spaces. Intuitively, if the reinforcement signal is very scarce,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-15 Susan Amin , Maziar Gomrokchi , Hossein Aboutalebi , Harsh Satija , Doina Precup

The study of exploration in the domain of decision making has a long history but remains actively debated. From the vast literature that addressed this topic for decades under various points of view (e.g., developmental psychology,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-14 Léonard Hussenot , Robert Dadashi , Matthieu Geist , Olivier Pietquin

We present a representation-driven framework for reinforcement learning. By representing policies as estimates of their expected values, we leverage techniques from contextual bandits to guide exploration and exploitation. Particularly,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-23 Ofir Nabati , Guy Tennenholtz , Shie Mannor

Efficient exploration remains a challenging problem in reinforcement learning, especially for tasks where extrinsic rewards from environments are sparse or even totally disregarded. Significant advances based on intrinsic motivation show…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-03 Chenjia Bai , Peng Liu , Kaiyu Liu , Lingxiao Wang , Yingnan Zhao , Lei Han

A reinforcement learning agent tries to maximize its cumulative payoff by interacting in an unknown environment. It is important for the agent to explore suboptimal actions as well as to pick actions with highest known rewards. Yet, in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-01-23 Reazul Hasan Russel

Effective exploration is a challenge in reinforcement learning (RL). Novelty-based exploration methods can suffer in high-dimensional state spaces, such as continuous partially-observable 3D environments. We address this challenge by…

Reinforcement learning (RL) promises to expand the capabilities of language models, but it is unclear if current RL techniques promote the discovery of novel behaviors, or simply sharpen those already present in the base model. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-14 Jens Tuyls , Dylan J. Foster , Akshay Krishnamurthy , Jordan T. Ash

Efficient exploration remains a challenging problem in reinforcement learning, especially for those tasks where rewards from environments are sparse. A commonly used approach for exploring such environments is to introduce some "intrinsic"…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-16 Neale Ratzlaff , Qinxun Bai , Li Fuxin , Wei Xu

Very large state spaces with a sparse reward signal are difficult to explore. The lack of a sophisticated guidance results in a poor performance for numerous reinforcement learning algorithms. In these cases, the commonly used random…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-16 Marc Höftmann , Jan Robine , Stefan Harmeling

Unsupervised exploration and representation learning become increasingly important when learning in diverse and sparse environments. The information-theoretic principle of empowerment formalizes an unsupervised exploration objective through…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-24 Jonathan Binas , Sherjil Ozair , Yoshua Bengio

In order to explore and act autonomously in an environment, an agent needs to learn from the sensorimotor information that is captured while acting. By extracting the regularities in this sensorimotor stream, it can learn a model of the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2018-04-27 Thibaut Kulak , Michael Garcia Ortiz

One effective approach for equipping artificial agents with sensorimotor skills is to use self-exploration. To do this efficiently is critical, as time and data collection are costly. In this study, we propose an exploration mechanism that…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-02-18 Melisa Sener , Yukie Nagai , Erhan Oztop , Emre Ugur

Many potential applications of reinforcement learning (RL) are stymied by the large numbers of samples required to learn an effective policy. This is especially true when applying RL to real-world control tasks, e.g. in the sciences or…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-11 Viraj Mehta , Ian Char , Joseph Abbate , Rory Conlin , Mark D. Boyer , Stefano Ermon , Jeff Schneider , Willie Neiswanger

Both animals and artificial agents benefit from state representations that support rapid transfer of learning across tasks and which enable them to efficiently traverse their environments to reach rewarding states. The successor…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-09 Ted Moskovitz , Spencer R. Wilson , Maneesh Sahani

Reinforcement learning algorithms struggle when the reward signal is very sparse. In these cases, naive random exploration methods essentially rely on a random walk to stumble onto a rewarding state. Recent works utilize intrinsic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-14 Hyoungseok Kim , Jaekyeom Kim , Yeonwoo Jeong , Sergey Levine , Hyun Oh Song

Effective and intelligent exploration has been an unresolved problem for reinforcement learning. Most contemporary reinforcement learning relies on simple heuristic strategies such as $\epsilon$-greedy exploration or adding Gaussian noise…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-19 Muhammad Usama , Dong Eui Chang

Many reinforcement learning exploration techniques are overly optimistic and try to explore every state. Such exploration is impossible in environments with the unlimited number of states. I propose to use simulated exploration with an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2009-05-20 Ivo Danihelka

One of the key challenges in visual imitation learning is collecting large amounts of expert demonstrations for a given task. While methods for collecting human demonstrations are becoming easier with teleoperation methods and the use of…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-07-20 Sarah Young , Jyothish Pari , Pieter Abbeel , Lerrel Pinto