Adversarial Imitation Learning with General Function Approximation: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Algorithms
Fuente:
arXiv
Enregistré dans:
| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2026
|
| Sujets: | |
| Accès en ligne: | |
| Tags: |
Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
|
| _version_ | 1866909011366903808 |
|---|---|
| author | Xu, Tian Zhang, Zhilong Chen, Zexuan Chen, Ruishuo Sun, Yihao Yu, Yang |
| author_facet | Xu, Tian Zhang, Zhilong Chen, Zexuan Chen, Ruishuo Sun, Yihao Yu, Yang |
| contents | Adversarial imitation learning (AIL), a prominent approach in imitation learning, has achieved significant practical success powered by neural network approximation. However, existing theoretical analyses of AIL are primarily confined to simplified settings, such as tabular and linear function approximation, and involve complex algorithmic designs that impede practical implementation. This creates a substantial gap between theory and practice. This paper bridges this gap by exploring the theoretical underpinnings of online AIL with general function approximation. We introduce a novel framework called optimization-based AIL (OPT-AIL), which performs online optimization for reward learning coupled with optimism-regularized optimization for policy learning. Within this framework, we develop two concrete methods: model-free OPT-AIL and model-based OPT-AIL. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that both variants achieve polynomial expert sample complexity and interaction complexity for learning near-expert policies. To the best of our knowledge, they represent the first provably efficient AIL methods under general function approximation. From a practical standpoint, OPT-AIL requires only the approximate optimization of two objectives, thereby facilitating practical implementation. Empirical studies demonstrate that OPT-AIL outperforms previous state-of-the-art deep AIL methods across several challenging tasks. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_01778 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Adversarial Imitation Learning with General Function Approximation: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Algorithms Xu, Tian Zhang, Zhilong Chen, Zexuan Chen, Ruishuo Sun, Yihao Yu, Yang Machine Learning Adversarial imitation learning (AIL), a prominent approach in imitation learning, has achieved significant practical success powered by neural network approximation. However, existing theoretical analyses of AIL are primarily confined to simplified settings, such as tabular and linear function approximation, and involve complex algorithmic designs that impede practical implementation. This creates a substantial gap between theory and practice. This paper bridges this gap by exploring the theoretical underpinnings of online AIL with general function approximation. We introduce a novel framework called optimization-based AIL (OPT-AIL), which performs online optimization for reward learning coupled with optimism-regularized optimization for policy learning. Within this framework, we develop two concrete methods: model-free OPT-AIL and model-based OPT-AIL. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that both variants achieve polynomial expert sample complexity and interaction complexity for learning near-expert policies. To the best of our knowledge, they represent the first provably efficient AIL methods under general function approximation. From a practical standpoint, OPT-AIL requires only the approximate optimization of two objectives, thereby facilitating practical implementation. Empirical studies demonstrate that OPT-AIL outperforms previous state-of-the-art deep AIL methods across several challenging tasks. |
| title | Adversarial Imitation Learning with General Function Approximation: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Algorithms |
| topic | Machine Learning |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01778 |