EnhancedRL: An Enhanced-State Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Multi-Task Fusion in Recommender Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Peng, Xu, Cong, Zhu, Jiawei, Zhao, Ming, Wang, Bin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Liu, Peng
Xu, Cong
Zhu, Jiawei
Zhao, Ming
Wang, Bin
author_facet Liu, Peng
Xu, Cong
Zhu, Jiawei
Zhao, Ming
Wang, Bin
contents As a key stage of Recommender Systems (RSs), Multi-Task Fusion (MTF) is responsible for merging multiple scores output by Multi-Task Learning (MTL) into a single score, finally determining the recommendation results. Recently, Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been applied to MTF to maximize long-term user satisfaction within a recommendation session. However, due to limitations in modeling paradigm, all existing RL algorithms for MTF can only utilize user features and statistical features as the state to generate actions at the user level, but unable to leverage item features and other valuable features, which leads to suboptimal performance. Overcoming this problem requires a breakthrough in the existing modeling paradigm, yet, to date, no prior work has addressed it. To tackle this challenge, we propose EnhancedRL, an innovative RL algorithm. Unlike existing RL-MTF methods, EnhancedRL takes the enhanced state as input, incorporating not only user features but also item features and other valuable information. Furthermore, it introduces a tailored actor-critic framework - including redesigned actor and critics and a novel learning procedure - to optimize long-term rewards at the user-item pair level within a recommendation session. Extensive offline and online experiments are conducted in an industrial RS and the results demonstrate that EnhancedRL outperforms other methods remarkably, achieving a +3.84% increase in user valid consumption and a +0.58% increase in user duration time. To the best of our knowledge, EnhancedRL is the first work to address this challenge, and it has been fully deployed in a large-scale RS since September 14, 2023, yielding significant improvements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_11678
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle EnhancedRL: An Enhanced-State Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Multi-Task Fusion in Recommender Systems
Liu, Peng
Xu, Cong
Zhu, Jiawei
Zhao, Ming
Wang, Bin
Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
As a key stage of Recommender Systems (RSs), Multi-Task Fusion (MTF) is responsible for merging multiple scores output by Multi-Task Learning (MTL) into a single score, finally determining the recommendation results. Recently, Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been applied to MTF to maximize long-term user satisfaction within a recommendation session. However, due to limitations in modeling paradigm, all existing RL algorithms for MTF can only utilize user features and statistical features as the state to generate actions at the user level, but unable to leverage item features and other valuable features, which leads to suboptimal performance. Overcoming this problem requires a breakthrough in the existing modeling paradigm, yet, to date, no prior work has addressed it. To tackle this challenge, we propose EnhancedRL, an innovative RL algorithm. Unlike existing RL-MTF methods, EnhancedRL takes the enhanced state as input, incorporating not only user features but also item features and other valuable information. Furthermore, it introduces a tailored actor-critic framework - including redesigned actor and critics and a novel learning procedure - to optimize long-term rewards at the user-item pair level within a recommendation session. Extensive offline and online experiments are conducted in an industrial RS and the results demonstrate that EnhancedRL outperforms other methods remarkably, achieving a +3.84% increase in user valid consumption and a +0.58% increase in user duration time. To the best of our knowledge, EnhancedRL is the first work to address this challenge, and it has been fully deployed in a large-scale RS since September 14, 2023, yielding significant improvements.
title EnhancedRL: An Enhanced-State Reinforcement Learning Algorithm for Multi-Task Fusion in Recommender Systems
topic Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.11678