arXiv AI

DISEIL: Demonstration Distillation for Sample-Efficient Imitation Learning

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

One Symptom, Three Levers: A Critical Review of On-Policy Self-Distillation

The paper reviews On‑Policy Self‑Distillation (OPSD), a method where a language model learns from its own generations using privileged information such as reference solutions or plans, eliminating the need for a larger teacher model. It identifies a key failure mode—collapse, where the model’s reasoning paths narrow progressively—and analyzes it through three levers: signal application, privileged information, and teacher dynamics. The review focuses on mathematical reasoning, offering a unified vocabulary and distinguishing settled facts from ongoing debates.

By Justin Robert, Raheel Qader
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 19

VLCP: Vision Language Control Policy Closed-Loop Code Replanning for Robot Manipulation

VLCP (Vision Language Control Policy) is a training‑free robot manipulation approach that keeps a vision‑language model (VLM) frozen and uses it to generate short Python control functions. Unlike traditional methods that retry a fixed policy, VLCP rewrites the control code every K steps based on multi‑view RGB, proprioceptive state, and state delta, allowing failures to be corrected within the same episode. In a 57‑task MuJoCo/RoboVerse benchmark, VLCP achieves 35.1% pooled success versus 3.5% for a single‑query baseline, with a 27.3% within‑episode recovery rate on failed grasps and efficient token usage.

By Dhia Naouali, Minghan Wu, Claudia Wong, Abhinav Puthran, Omar G. Younis