arXiv AI

Probabilistic Performance Guarantees for Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2602. 02098v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Multi-task reinforcement learning trains generalist policies that can execute multiple tasks.

arXiv Machine Learning
3d ago

Reinforcement Learning Enables Scaling Generalist Robot Policy Improvement

arXiv:2611.06905v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The introduction of generalist robot policies has enabled a single, large model to learn to perform a variety of tasks from a vast pre-training corpus....

By Michal Korniak, Marco Bagatella, Ralf R\"omer, Michal Nauman, Yarden As, Pranav Vignesh, Manan Agarwal, Leander Diaz-Bone, Piotr Zalewski, Miko{\l}aj Czarnecki, Lenart Treven, Shashwat Saxena, Sreyas Venkataraman, Sarvesh Patil, Zhiyuan Zhou, Daniel Marta, Oier Mees, Nur Muhammad Mahi Shafiullah, Carmelo Sferrazza, Bhavya Sukhija, Angela P. Schoellig, Andreas Krause, Max Simchowitz, Andrew Wagenmaker
arXiv AI
Oct 12

Sampling-Based Safe Reinforcement Learning

Sampling-Based Safe Reinforcement Learning (SBSRL) is a model‑based RL algorithm that enforces safety by jointly constraining a finite set of dynamics samples, approximating a worst‑case optimization over uncertain dynamics. It introduces an exploration strategy that limits epistemic uncertainty, removing the need for explicit exploration bonuses. The authors provide high‑probability safety guarantees and a finite‑time sample complexity bound, and demonstrate safe, efficient exploration in both simulation and real robotic hardware, with extensions to deep‑ensemble implementations for high‑dimensional continuous control.

By Luca Vignola, Bruce D. Lee, Manish Prajapat, Manuel Wendl, Melanie Zeilinger, Andreas Krause, Yarden As
arXiv AI
Aug 19

Task Specialization Fine-Tuning for Contextual Reinforcement Learning

The paper introduces Task Specialization Fine-Tuning (TSFT), an online framework that allocates a limited fine‑tuning budget across multiple task regions in Contextual Reinforcement Learning. TSFT predicts fine‑tuning performance with a simple parametric model and solves the budget allocation problem exactly using integer linear programming. Experiments on combinatorial optimization, continuous control, and LLM fine‑tuning show that TSFT outperforms baselines in task coverage and approaches oracle performance.

By Jianan Zhou, Jung-Hoon Cho, Tianyue Zhou, Han Zheng, Jie Zhang, Roy Dong, Yining Ma, Cathy Wu
arXiv AI
Sep 15

Evaluation Metrics for Safe Reinforcement Learning

The paper introduces new evaluation metrics for safe reinforcement learning that go beyond average safety guarantees by examining how often and how severely safety bounds are violated, consistency across tasks and bounds, and the relationship between training-time and final policy behavior. It also proposes a safety tier system for categorizing algorithms and presents empirical safety evaluations on multiple navigation tasks. The authors recommend reporting aggregate metrics, distributional data, and task‑specific results together, and provide an open‑source suite, SafeRLEval, to facilitate reliable safety assessment.

By Lindsay Spoor, Aske Plaat, Thomas Moerland
arXiv AI
Oct 2

Your Language Model is Its Own Critic: Reinforcement Learning with Value Estimation from Actor's Internal States

The paper introduces POISE, a reinforcement learning algorithm that uses a model’s internal states as a value estimator to reduce variance in reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR). By employing a lightweight probe that reads internal signals during the forward pass, POISE predicts baselines online and uses a cross‑rollout construction to keep gradients unbiased. Experiments on Qwen3‑4B and OLMo3‑7B‑Instruct‑DPO across six domains show POISE outperforms existing RLVR baselines, offering more stable training and a value model that generalizes across tasks and scales with the policy.

By Yunho Choi, Jongwon Lim, Woojin Ahn, Minjae Oh, Jeonghoon Shim, Yohan Jo
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 3

Reusing Past Samples in Proximal Policy Optimization: When and How Does It Help?

The paper investigates how reusing past samples can improve the sample efficiency of Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO). Two variants, wPPO-U and wPPO-BH, are introduced within a multiple importance weighting framework, each reusing data from recent iterations while preserving core PPO mechanics. The authors derive theoretical policy improvement bounds for both variants and empirically evaluate their impact on continuous control tasks.

By Alessandro Montenegro, Riccardo Venturelli, Marco Mussi, Matteo Papini, Alberto Maria Metelli
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 7

A Hierarchy of Policy Learning Problems

arXiv:2607. 03385v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Policy learning has received substantial attention with the goal of learning policies from observational data for decision-making.

By Hamsa Bastani, Osbert Bastani, Shihan Chen