Knowing What Not to Do: Leverage Language Model Insights for Action Space Pruning in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Zhihao, Yang, Xianliang, Liu, Zichuan, Xia, Yifan, Jiang, Wei, Zhang, Yuanyu, Li, Lijuan, Fan, Guoliang, Song, Lei, Jiang, Bian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Liu, Zhihao
Yang, Xianliang
Liu, Zichuan
Xia, Yifan
Jiang, Wei
Zhang, Yuanyu
Li, Lijuan
Fan, Guoliang
Song, Lei
Jiang, Bian
author_facet Liu, Zhihao
Yang, Xianliang
Liu, Zichuan
Xia, Yifan
Jiang, Wei
Zhang, Yuanyu
Li, Lijuan
Fan, Guoliang
Song, Lei
Jiang, Bian
contents Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) is employed to develop autonomous agents that can learn to adopt cooperative or competitive strategies within complex environments. However, the linear increase in the number of agents leads to a combinatorial explosion of the action space, which may result in algorithmic instability, difficulty in convergence, or entrapment in local optima. While researchers have designed a variety of effective algorithms to compress the action space, these methods also introduce new challenges, such as the need for manually designed prior knowledge or reliance on the structure of the problem, which diminishes the applicability of these techniques. In this paper, we introduce Evolutionary action SPAce Reduction with Knowledge (eSpark), an exploration function generation framework driven by large language models (LLMs) to boost exploration and prune unnecessary actions in MARL. Using just a basic prompt that outlines the overall task and setting, eSpark is capable of generating exploration functions in a zero-shot manner, identifying and pruning redundant or irrelevant state-action pairs, and then achieving autonomous improvement from policy feedback. In reinforcement learning tasks involving inventory management and traffic light control encompassing a total of 15 scenarios, eSpark consistently outperforms the combined MARL algorithm in all scenarios, achieving an average performance gain of 34.4% and 9.9% in the two types of tasks respectively. Additionally, eSpark has proven to be capable of managing situations with a large number of agents, securing a 29.7% improvement in scalability challenges that featured over 500 agents. The code can be found in https://github.com/LiuZhihao2022/eSpark.git.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_16854
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Knowing What Not to Do: Leverage Language Model Insights for Action Space Pruning in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning
Liu, Zhihao
Yang, Xianliang
Liu, Zichuan
Xia, Yifan
Jiang, Wei
Zhang, Yuanyu
Li, Lijuan
Fan, Guoliang
Song, Lei
Jiang, Bian
Multiagent Systems
Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) is employed to develop autonomous agents that can learn to adopt cooperative or competitive strategies within complex environments. However, the linear increase in the number of agents leads to a combinatorial explosion of the action space, which may result in algorithmic instability, difficulty in convergence, or entrapment in local optima. While researchers have designed a variety of effective algorithms to compress the action space, these methods also introduce new challenges, such as the need for manually designed prior knowledge or reliance on the structure of the problem, which diminishes the applicability of these techniques. In this paper, we introduce Evolutionary action SPAce Reduction with Knowledge (eSpark), an exploration function generation framework driven by large language models (LLMs) to boost exploration and prune unnecessary actions in MARL. Using just a basic prompt that outlines the overall task and setting, eSpark is capable of generating exploration functions in a zero-shot manner, identifying and pruning redundant or irrelevant state-action pairs, and then achieving autonomous improvement from policy feedback. In reinforcement learning tasks involving inventory management and traffic light control encompassing a total of 15 scenarios, eSpark consistently outperforms the combined MARL algorithm in all scenarios, achieving an average performance gain of 34.4% and 9.9% in the two types of tasks respectively. Additionally, eSpark has proven to be capable of managing situations with a large number of agents, securing a 29.7% improvement in scalability challenges that featured over 500 agents. The code can be found in https://github.com/LiuZhihao2022/eSpark.git.
title Knowing What Not to Do: Leverage Language Model Insights for Action Space Pruning in Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning
topic Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.16854