arXiv Machine Learning

Learning Multi-Timescale Interventions under Safety and Resource Constraints

arXiv:2508. 03875v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Many sequential decision problems offer qualitatively different ways of influencing the environment: some interventions act immediately, whereas others induce persistent effects that continue to shape future states long after the decision that initiated them.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 14

MInTRL: Off-policy Intervention can boost On-policy RL

MInTRL (Minimal Intervention Reinforcement Learning) expands exploration in on-policy reinforcement learning by inserting sparse, local corrections into rollouts via a judge-intervention policy. These interventions replace erroneous suffixes and immediately return control to the main policy, allowing the agent to explore beyond its natural trajectory while maintaining on-policy data. The method uses a sequence-level advantage-regression objective, avoiding importance sampling, and demonstrates superior performance on math and code benchmarks compared to standard on-policy and off-policy baselines.

By Mingyu Chen, Yefan Tao, Gerald Friedland, Xuezhou Zhang, Chris Kong
arXiv AI
1d ago

Learning Multiple Timescales for Goal-Conditioned Reinforcement Learning

The paper introduces Generalized Implicit Temporal Abstraction (GITA), a method for goal-conditioned reinforcement learning that conditions a single value function on multiple temporal abstraction levels (k). By aggregating advantage-weighted supervision across various k values, GITA preserves both long-range signal and local resolution without committing to a single k. Experiments on OGBench show that GITA outperforms existing offline GCRL baselines, improving average success rates by 25 percentage points over HIQL and 7 percentage points over OTA.

By Pedro Robles Dutenhefner, Dikshant Shehmar, Wagner Meira Jr., Marlos C. Machado
arXiv AI
Jul 7

Regime-Conditional Stabilisation of LLM-Augmented Cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2607. 04470v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) offer a natural interface for translating human objectives into reward signals for cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL), yet the training-time dynamics of this integration remain poorly understood.

By Faid Keddouri, Sohaib Houhou, Aissa Boulmerka, Nadir Farhi
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 10

Decision-Centered Abstractions via Orthogonal Estimation of Difference-of-Q Functions

The paper introduces state abstractions that preserve the difference of Q‑functions for offline reinforcement learning, aiming to exclude irrelevant dynamics from rich state data. It proposes a dynamic generalization of the R‑learner that uses orthogonal estimation and sparse learning to estimate the Q‑function contrast, achieving faster convergence and consistency under a margin condition. Experiments on simulated and simulator‑augmented real data show variance reductions and demonstrate that the necessary information for sequential decision‑making can be smaller than that required for full state prediction.

By Defu Cao, Angela Zhou
arXiv AI
Sep 1

BCPPO: Bachelier-Inspired Constrained Proximal Policy Optimization for Tail-Risk-Aware Safe Reinforcement Learning

BCPPO is a new variant of Proximal Policy Optimization that uses Bachelier-inspired cost‑prediction networks to generate a smooth penalty based on disagreement among critics. The method keeps temporal‑difference learning unchanged, applies a saturation‑aware controller to manage cost penalties, and deploys only the policy network. Across extensive experiments, BCPPO outperforms comparators in achieving higher mean returns while maintaining lower or comparable CVaR in all tested tasks.

By Dongsheng Hou, Yanqiao Chen, Yuhan Rui
arXiv Machine Learning
3d ago

NeuronSifter: Intervention Planning in CNS Microenvironments

NeuronSifter is a framework for planning interventions in central nervous system microenvironments by converting treatment regimens into state‑conditional target‑occupancy fields and propagating them through microenvironment dynamics. It selects measurements based on their expected reduction in intervention loss, integrating typed outcomes into a unified posterior. In synthetic Alzheimer’s disease scenarios, occupancy conditioning improves trajectory probability scores and intervention ordering accuracy, and decision‑directed acquisition reduces terminal risk compared to a Bayesian experimental design planner.

By Haowei Xu, Wanyi Fu, Hongbin Han, Zhaoheng Xie
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 31

DoTime: A Synthetic Benchmark Generator for Interventional and Counterfactual Time Series

arXiv:2607. 27263v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Most benchmarks for causal inference over time series are observational, small, or domain-specific, leaving interventional and counterfactual estimation under-served exactly where it matters most, such as in healthcare, policy evaluation, and climate science.

By Dennis Thumm, Billy Tim Anthony, Ying Chen
arXiv AI
2d ago

ComputerSD: Online Self-Distillation from Real-Time Feedback for Computer-Use Agents

ComputerSD is an online self‑distillation method for computer‑use agents that leverages real‑time feedback from executed GUI transitions. It uses a fine‑tuned GUI analyzer to generate guidance and a step‑level value score after each action, combining token‑level OPSD with trajectory‑level GRPO in an asynchronous training framework. On the OSWorld‑Verified benchmark, ComputerSD improves performance over outcome‑only GRPO by 1.9 and 4.1 percentage points on Qwen3‑VL‑8B‑Thinking and EvoCUA‑8B backbones, and shows strong generalizability in out‑of‑distribution tests.

By Yong Du, Tongbo Chen, Zhengxi Lu, Yizhou Liu, Bofan Chen, Tao Jiang, Wenhao Xu, Yongliang Shen