Scaling Tasks, Not Samples: Mastering Humanoid Control through Multi-Task Model-Based Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Liu, Shaohuai, Ye, Weirui, Du, Yilun, Xie, Le
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Liu, Shaohuai
Ye, Weirui
Du, Yilun
Xie, Le
author_facet Liu, Shaohuai
Ye, Weirui
Du, Yilun
Xie, Le
contents Developing generalist robots capable of mastering diverse skills remains a central challenge in embodied AI. While recent progress emphasizes scaling model parameters and offline datasets, such approaches are limited in robotics, where learning requires active interaction. We argue that effective online learning should scale the \emph{number of tasks}, rather than the number of samples per task. This regime reveals a structural advantage of model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL). Because physical dynamics are invariant across tasks, a shared world model can aggregate multi-task experience to learn robust, task-agnostic representations. In contrast, model-free methods suffer from gradient interference when tasks demand conflicting actions in similar states. Task diversity therefore acts as a regularizer for MBRL, improving dynamics learning and sample efficiency. We instantiate this idea with \textbf{EfficientZero-Multitask (EZ-M)}, a sample-efficient multi-task MBRL algorithm for online learning. Evaluated on \textbf{HumanoidBench}, a challenging whole-body control benchmark, EZ-M achieves state-of-the-art performance with significantly higher sample efficiency than strong baselines, without extreme parameter scaling. These results establish task scaling as a critical axis for scalable robotic learning. The project website is available \href{https://yewr.github.io/ez_m/}{here}.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_01452
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scaling Tasks, Not Samples: Mastering Humanoid Control through Multi-Task Model-Based Reinforcement Learning
Liu, Shaohuai
Ye, Weirui
Du, Yilun
Xie, Le
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
Developing generalist robots capable of mastering diverse skills remains a central challenge in embodied AI. While recent progress emphasizes scaling model parameters and offline datasets, such approaches are limited in robotics, where learning requires active interaction. We argue that effective online learning should scale the \emph{number of tasks}, rather than the number of samples per task. This regime reveals a structural advantage of model-based reinforcement learning (MBRL). Because physical dynamics are invariant across tasks, a shared world model can aggregate multi-task experience to learn robust, task-agnostic representations. In contrast, model-free methods suffer from gradient interference when tasks demand conflicting actions in similar states. Task diversity therefore acts as a regularizer for MBRL, improving dynamics learning and sample efficiency. We instantiate this idea with \textbf{EfficientZero-Multitask (EZ-M)}, a sample-efficient multi-task MBRL algorithm for online learning. Evaluated on \textbf{HumanoidBench}, a challenging whole-body control benchmark, EZ-M achieves state-of-the-art performance with significantly higher sample efficiency than strong baselines, without extreme parameter scaling. These results establish task scaling as a critical axis for scalable robotic learning. The project website is available \href{https://yewr.github.io/ez_m/}{here}.
title Scaling Tasks, Not Samples: Mastering Humanoid Control through Multi-Task Model-Based Reinforcement Learning
topic Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01452