Global Convergence of Multi-Agent Policy Gradient in Markov Potential Games

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Leonardos, Stefanos, Overman, Will, Panageas, Ioannis, Piliouras, Georgios
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2021
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author Leonardos, Stefanos
Overman, Will
Panageas, Ioannis
Piliouras, Georgios
author_facet Leonardos, Stefanos
Overman, Will
Panageas, Ioannis
Piliouras, Georgios
contents Potential games are arguably one of the most important and widely studied classes of normal form games. They define the archetypal setting of multi-agent coordination as all agent utilities are perfectly aligned with each other via a common potential function. Can this intuitive framework be transplanted in the setting of Markov Games? What are the similarities and differences between multi-agent coordination with and without state dependence? We present a novel definition of Markov Potential Games (MPG) that generalizes prior attempts at capturing complex stateful multi-agent coordination. Counter-intuitively, insights from normal-form potential games do not carry over as MPGs can consist of settings where state-games can be zero-sum games. In the opposite direction, Markov games where every state-game is a potential game are not necessarily MPGs. Nevertheless, MPGs showcase standard desirable properties such as the existence of deterministic Nash policies. In our main technical result, we prove fast convergence of independent policy gradient to Nash policies by adapting recent gradient dominance property arguments developed for single agent MDPs to multi-agent learning settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2106_01969
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Global Convergence of Multi-Agent Policy Gradient in Markov Potential Games
Leonardos, Stefanos
Overman, Will
Panageas, Ioannis
Piliouras, Georgios
Machine Learning
Computer Science and Game Theory
Potential games are arguably one of the most important and widely studied classes of normal form games. They define the archetypal setting of multi-agent coordination as all agent utilities are perfectly aligned with each other via a common potential function. Can this intuitive framework be transplanted in the setting of Markov Games? What are the similarities and differences between multi-agent coordination with and without state dependence? We present a novel definition of Markov Potential Games (MPG) that generalizes prior attempts at capturing complex stateful multi-agent coordination. Counter-intuitively, insights from normal-form potential games do not carry over as MPGs can consist of settings where state-games can be zero-sum games. In the opposite direction, Markov games where every state-game is a potential game are not necessarily MPGs. Nevertheless, MPGs showcase standard desirable properties such as the existence of deterministic Nash policies. In our main technical result, we prove fast convergence of independent policy gradient to Nash policies by adapting recent gradient dominance property arguments developed for single agent MDPs to multi-agent learning settings.
title Global Convergence of Multi-Agent Policy Gradient in Markov Potential Games
topic Machine Learning
Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.01969