arXiv Machine Learning

Generalizing Preference-based Reinforcement Learning: a Rationality Model for Incomparability

arXiv:2607. 11432v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In this work, we study the reinforcement learning (RL) problem from pairwise trajectory comparisons provided by a human expert.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 10

Learning Acrobatic Flight from Preferences

The paper introduces Reward Ensemble under Confidence (REC), a probabilistic reward learning framework for preference-based reinforcement learning that models per‑timestep reward uncertainty using an ensemble of distributional reward models. REC incorporates uncertainty into the preference loss and uses model disagreement to drive exploration, achieving 88.4% of shaped‑reward performance on acrobatic quadrotor control versus 55.2% with standard Preference PPO. The authors train policies in simulation and transfer them zero‑shot to real quadrotors, demonstrating complex acrobatic maneuvers learned solely from human preference feedback, and validate REC on a continuous‑control benchmark.

By Colin Merk, Ismail Geles, Jiaxu Xing, Angel Romero, Giorgia Ramponi, Davide Scaramuzza
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 3

Objective-Behavior Alignment: Diagnostics for MORL Policy Selection

The paper introduces a diagnostic workflow for multi‑objective reinforcement learning (MORL) that reveals behavioral differences among policies on the Pareto front, which are not apparent from value vectors alone. It offers quantitative and visual tools to inspect these variations and demonstrates their effectiveness on both simple grid tasks and more complex continuous‑control benchmarks.

By Antonio Mone, Zuzanna Osika, Florian Felten, Pradeep K. Murukannaiah, Mark Fuge, Frans A. Oliehoek, Luciano Cavalcante Siebert
arXiv AI
3d ago

On the Complexity of Preference-Based Bandits

The paper investigates preference-based bandits where a learner selects pairs of arms and receives binary preference feedback modeled by Bradley–Terry. It introduces the locally sensitive eluder dimension, a new complexity measure for logistic preference feedback, and proposes the GINOP algorithm that uses log-loss confidence sets to balance optimism and exploration. The authors prove a first-order regret bound showing that learning with preference feedback can be as statistically efficient as learning from direct rewards, and they validate their theory with empirical experiments.

By Ahmed Ben Yahmed (CREST, ENSAE Paris, FAIRPLAY), Marc Abeille (FAIRPLAY), Cl\'ement Calauz\`enes (FAIRPLAY)