Mirror Learning: A Unifying Framework of Policy Optimisation

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Kuba, Jakub Grudzien, de Witt, Christian Schroeder, Foerster, Jakob
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2022
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866916488185643008
author Kuba, Jakub Grudzien
de Witt, Christian Schroeder
Foerster, Jakob
author_facet Kuba, Jakub Grudzien
de Witt, Christian Schroeder
Foerster, Jakob
contents Modern deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are motivated by either the generalised policy iteration (GPI) or trust-region learning (TRL) frameworks. However, algorithms that strictly respect these theoretical frameworks have proven unscalable. Surprisingly, the only known scalable algorithms violate the GPI/TRL assumptions, e.g. due to required regularisation or other heuristics. The current explanation of their empirical success is essentially "by analogy": they are deemed approximate adaptations of theoretically sound methods. Unfortunately, studies have shown that in practice these algorithms differ greatly from their conceptual ancestors. In contrast, in this paper we introduce a novel theoretical framework, named Mirror Learning, which provides theoretical guarantees to a large class of algorithms, including TRPO and PPO. While the latter two exploit the flexibility of our framework, GPI and TRL fit in merely as pathologically restrictive corner cases thereof. This suggests that the empirical performance of state-of-the-art methods is a direct consequence of their theoretical properties, rather than of aforementioned approximate analogies. Mirror learning sets us free to boldly explore novel, theoretically sound RL algorithms, a thus far uncharted wonderland.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2201_02373
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Mirror Learning: A Unifying Framework of Policy Optimisation
Kuba, Jakub Grudzien
de Witt, Christian Schroeder
Foerster, Jakob
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Modern deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are motivated by either the generalised policy iteration (GPI) or trust-region learning (TRL) frameworks. However, algorithms that strictly respect these theoretical frameworks have proven unscalable. Surprisingly, the only known scalable algorithms violate the GPI/TRL assumptions, e.g. due to required regularisation or other heuristics. The current explanation of their empirical success is essentially "by analogy": they are deemed approximate adaptations of theoretically sound methods. Unfortunately, studies have shown that in practice these algorithms differ greatly from their conceptual ancestors. In contrast, in this paper we introduce a novel theoretical framework, named Mirror Learning, which provides theoretical guarantees to a large class of algorithms, including TRPO and PPO. While the latter two exploit the flexibility of our framework, GPI and TRL fit in merely as pathologically restrictive corner cases thereof. This suggests that the empirical performance of state-of-the-art methods is a direct consequence of their theoretical properties, rather than of aforementioned approximate analogies. Mirror learning sets us free to boldly explore novel, theoretically sound RL algorithms, a thus far uncharted wonderland.
title Mirror Learning: A Unifying Framework of Policy Optimisation
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.02373