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Main Authors: Mao, Chenjie, Zhang, Qiaosheng
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.01378
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author Mao, Chenjie
Zhang, Qiaosheng
author_facet Mao, Chenjie
Zhang, Qiaosheng
contents This paper proposes the first generic fast convergence result in general function approximation for offline decision making problems, which include offline reinforcement learning (RL) and off-policy evaluation (OPE) as special cases. To unify different settings, we introduce a framework called Decision Making with Offline Feedback (DMOF), which captures a wide range of offline decision making problems. Within this framework, we propose a simple yet powerful algorithm called Empirical Decision with Divergence (EDD), whose upper bound can be termed as a coefficient named Empirical Offline Estimation Coefficient (EOEC). We show that EOEC is instance-dependent and actually measures the correlation of the problem. When assuming partial coverage in the dataset, EOEC will reduce in a rate of $1/N$ where $N$ is the size of the dataset, endowing EDD with a fast convergence guarantee. Finally, we complement the above results with a lower bound in the DMOF framework, which further demonstrates the soundness of our theory.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_01378
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Fast Convergence Theory for Offline Decision Making
Mao, Chenjie
Zhang, Qiaosheng
Machine Learning
This paper proposes the first generic fast convergence result in general function approximation for offline decision making problems, which include offline reinforcement learning (RL) and off-policy evaluation (OPE) as special cases. To unify different settings, we introduce a framework called Decision Making with Offline Feedback (DMOF), which captures a wide range of offline decision making problems. Within this framework, we propose a simple yet powerful algorithm called Empirical Decision with Divergence (EDD), whose upper bound can be termed as a coefficient named Empirical Offline Estimation Coefficient (EOEC). We show that EOEC is instance-dependent and actually measures the correlation of the problem. When assuming partial coverage in the dataset, EOEC will reduce in a rate of $1/N$ where $N$ is the size of the dataset, endowing EDD with a fast convergence guarantee. Finally, we complement the above results with a lower bound in the DMOF framework, which further demonstrates the soundness of our theory.
title A Fast Convergence Theory for Offline Decision Making
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.01378