arXiv Machine Learning

Rationalizing Boltzmann Rationality: An Axiomatic Characterization of Entropy-Regularized Policies

arXiv:2607. 17316v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The softmax policy $\pi(a \mid s) \propto \exp(\beta Q(s,a))$ is the default model of stochastic choice in reinforcement learning (RL).

arXiv AI
5d ago

Annealed Softmax Greedy in Many-Armed Bayesian Bandits

arXiv:2605. 31034v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) and group-based policy optimization methods such as GRPO update a stochastic policy by sampling multiple completions per prompt and increasing the policy's probability on those with higher reward, regularized by a KL penalty toward a reference policy.

By William Overman, Mohsen Bayati
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Aug 2

Perspectives on Tsallis Statistics for Artificial Intelligence

Tsallis statistics generalizes Boltzmann-Gibbs statistical mechanics through a single real parameter $q$ that controls the weight assigned to rare and frequent events. Originally proposed to describe physical systems with long-range correlations, multifractal geometry, and heavy-tailed fluctuations, the framework has become a recurring ingredient in modern artificial intelligence (AI): it underlies sparse attention mechanisms (\textsc{sparsemax} and $α$-\textsc{entmax}), maximum-entropy reinforcement learning with controllable exploration, robust and heavy-tailed probabilistic models, and a family of generalized loss functions and regularizers.

arXiv AI
Jun 2

Emergence of Exploration in Policy Gradient Reinforcement Learning via Retrying

arXiv:2606. 00151v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: In reinforcement learning (RL), agents benefit from exploration only because they repeatedly encounter similar states: trying different actions can improve performance or reduce uncertainty; without such retries, a greedy policy is optimal.

By Soichiro Nishimori, Paavo Parmas, Sotetsu Koyamada, Tadashi Kozuno, Toshinori Kitamura, Shin Ishii, Yutaka Matsuo