Statistical Guarantees for Lifelong Reinforcement Learning using PAC-Bayes Theory

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Zhi, Chow, Chris, Zhang, Yasi, Sun, Yanchao, Zhang, Haochen, Jiang, Eric Hanchen, Liu, Han, Huang, Furong, Cui, Yuchen, Padilla, Oscar Hernan Madrid
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Zhang, Zhi
Chow, Chris
Zhang, Yasi
Sun, Yanchao
Zhang, Haochen
Jiang, Eric Hanchen
Liu, Han
Huang, Furong
Cui, Yuchen
Padilla, Oscar Hernan Madrid
author_facet Zhang, Zhi
Chow, Chris
Zhang, Yasi
Sun, Yanchao
Zhang, Haochen
Jiang, Eric Hanchen
Liu, Han
Huang, Furong
Cui, Yuchen
Padilla, Oscar Hernan Madrid
contents Lifelong reinforcement learning (RL) has been developed as a paradigm for extending single-task RL to more realistic, dynamic settings. In lifelong RL, the "life" of an RL agent is modeled as a stream of tasks drawn from a task distribution. We propose EPIC (Empirical PAC-Bayes that Improves Continuously), a novel algorithm designed for lifelong RL using PAC-Bayes theory. EPIC learns a shared policy distribution, referred to as the world policy, which enables rapid adaptation to new tasks while retaining valuable knowledge from previous experiences. Our theoretical analysis establishes a relationship between the algorithm's generalization performance and the number of prior tasks preserved in memory. We also derive the sample complexity of EPIC in terms of RL regret. Extensive experiments on a variety of environments demonstrate that EPIC significantly outperforms existing methods in lifelong RL, offering both theoretical guarantees and practical efficacy through the use of the world policy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_00401
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Statistical Guarantees for Lifelong Reinforcement Learning using PAC-Bayes Theory
Zhang, Zhi
Chow, Chris
Zhang, Yasi
Sun, Yanchao
Zhang, Haochen
Jiang, Eric Hanchen
Liu, Han
Huang, Furong
Cui, Yuchen
Padilla, Oscar Hernan Madrid
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
68T05, 68Q32, 68T20
I.2.6; I.2.8; G.3
Lifelong reinforcement learning (RL) has been developed as a paradigm for extending single-task RL to more realistic, dynamic settings. In lifelong RL, the "life" of an RL agent is modeled as a stream of tasks drawn from a task distribution. We propose EPIC (Empirical PAC-Bayes that Improves Continuously), a novel algorithm designed for lifelong RL using PAC-Bayes theory. EPIC learns a shared policy distribution, referred to as the world policy, which enables rapid adaptation to new tasks while retaining valuable knowledge from previous experiences. Our theoretical analysis establishes a relationship between the algorithm's generalization performance and the number of prior tasks preserved in memory. We also derive the sample complexity of EPIC in terms of RL regret. Extensive experiments on a variety of environments demonstrate that EPIC significantly outperforms existing methods in lifelong RL, offering both theoretical guarantees and practical efficacy through the use of the world policy.
title Statistical Guarantees for Lifelong Reinforcement Learning using PAC-Bayes Theory
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
68T05, 68Q32, 68T20
I.2.6; I.2.8; G.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.00401