Jump-Start Reinforcement Learning

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02372v2
• Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2023 19:44:54 GMT
• Title: Jump-Start Reinforcement Learning
• Authors: Ikechukwu Uchendu, Ted Xiao, Yao Lu, Banghua Zhu, Mengyuan Yan, Jos\'ephine Simon, Matthew Bennice, Chuyuan Fu, Cong Ma, Jiantao Jiao, Sergey Levine, Karol Hausman
• Abstract summary: We present a meta algorithm that can use offline data, demonstrations, or a pre-existing policy to initialize an RL policy. In particular, we propose Jump-Start Reinforcement Learning (JSRL), an algorithm that employs two policies to solve tasks. We show via experiments that JSRL is able to significantly outperform existing imitation and reinforcement learning algorithms.
• Score: 68.82380421479675
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Reinforcement learning (RL) provides a theoretical framework for continuously improving an agent's behavior via trial and error. However, efficiently learning policies from scratch can be very difficult, particularly for tasks with exploration challenges. In such settings, it might be desirable to initialize RL with an existing policy, offline data, or demonstrations. However, naively performing such initialization in RL often works poorly, especially for value-based methods. In this paper, we present a meta algorithm that can use offline data, demonstrations, or a pre-existing policy to initialize an RL policy, and is compatible with any RL approach. In particular, we propose Jump-Start Reinforcement Learning (JSRL), an algorithm that employs two policies to solve tasks: a guide-policy, and an exploration-policy. By using the guide-policy to form a curriculum of starting states for the exploration-policy, we are able to efficiently improve performance on a set of simulated robotic tasks. We show via experiments that JSRL is able to significantly outperform existing imitation and reinforcement learning algorithms, particularly in the small-data regime. In addition, we provide an upper bound on the sample complexity of JSRL and show that with the help of a guide-policy, one can improve the sample complexity for non-optimism exploration methods from exponential in horizon to polynomial.

Related papers

• How Can LLM Guide RL? A Value-Based Approach [68.55316627400683]
  Reinforcement learning (RL) has become the de facto standard practice for sequential decision-making problems by improving future acting policies with feedback. Recent developments in large language models (LLMs) have showcased impressive capabilities in language understanding and generation, yet they fall short in exploration and self-improvement capabilities. We develop an algorithm named LINVIT that incorporates LLM guidance as a regularization factor in value-based RL, leading to significant reductions in the amount of data needed for learning.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-02-25T20:07:13Z)
• A Survey of Meta-Reinforcement Learning [69.76165430793571]
  We cast the development of better RL algorithms as a machine learning problem itself in a process called meta-RL. We discuss how, at a high level, meta-RL research can be clustered based on the presence of a task distribution and the learning budget available for each individual task. We conclude by presenting the open problems on the path to making meta-RL part of the standard toolbox for a deep RL practitioner.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-01-19T12:01:41Z)
• Direct Random Search for Fine Tuning of Deep Reinforcement Learning Policies [5.543220407902113]
  We show that a direct random search is very effective at fine-tuning DRL policies by directly optimizing them using deterministic rollouts. Our results show that this method yields more consistent and higher performing agents on the environments we tested.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-09-12T20:12:46Z)
• Text Generation with Efficient (Soft) Q-Learning [91.47743595382758]
  Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a more flexible solution by allowing users to plug in arbitrary task metrics as reward. We introduce a new RL formulation for text generation from the soft Q-learning perspective. We apply the approach to a wide range of tasks, including learning from noisy/negative examples, adversarial attacks, and prompt generation.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-06-14T18:48:40Z)
• Learning Dexterous Manipulation from Suboptimal Experts [69.8017067648129]
  Relative Entropy Q-Learning (REQ) is a simple policy algorithm that combines ideas from successful offline and conventional RL algorithms. We show how REQ is also effective for general off-policy RL, offline RL, and RL from demonstrations.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-10-16T18:48:49Z)
• FOCAL: Efficient Fully-Offline Meta-Reinforcement Learning via Distance Metric Learning and Behavior Regularization [10.243908145832394]
  We study the offline meta-reinforcement learning (OMRL) problem, a paradigm which enables reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms to quickly adapt to unseen tasks. This problem is still not fully understood, for which two major challenges need to be addressed. We provide analysis and insight showing that some simple design choices can yield substantial improvements over recent approaches.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-10-02T17:13:39Z)
• AWAC: Accelerating Online Reinforcement Learning with Offline Datasets [84.94748183816547]
  We show that our method, advantage weighted actor critic (AWAC), enables rapid learning of skills with a combination of prior demonstration data and online experience. Our results show that incorporating prior data can reduce the time required to learn a range of robotic skills to practical time-scales.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-06-16T17:54:41Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.