揭示多智能体价值分解的数学本质,提出可度量的马尔可夫纠缠概念。
Multi-agent Markov Entanglement
- 用类量子纠缠的马尔可夫纠缠刻画多智能体系统是否支持价值分解。
- 证明了在弱纠缠下,分解误差随智能体数呈 √N 亚线性增长。
- 提供可计算的纠缠度量,为实际应用中的分解质量提供评估工具。
价值分解是多智能体动态规划与强化学习中的基础技术,常将全局状态值函数近似为各智能体局部值函数之和:$V(s_1,s_2,\ rightarrow,N) approx \sum_{i=1}^N V_i(s_i)$。该方法源于非平稳多臂赌博机问题的索引策略,在现代强化学习中广泛应用。然而,其有效性的理论基础长期未被充分揭示。本文揭示了支持价值分解的内在数学结构:当且仅当多智能体马尔可夫决策过程(MDP)的转移矩阵不“纠缠”时,价值分解才成立——此“纠缠”概念类比于量子物理中的量子纠缠。受物理学家测量量子纠缠的启发,我们引入了多智能体MDP的“马尔可夫纠缠”度量,并证明该度量可用来界定一般多智能体MDP中的分解误差。基于此概念,我们证明了一类广泛使用的索引策略具有弱纠缠特性,其分解误差在 $N$-智能体系统中为 $\mathcal O(\sqrt{N})$ 亚线性增长。最后,我们展示了如何在实践中高效估计马尔可夫纠缠,为从业者提供了评估价值分解质量的实用代理指标。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Value decomposition has long been a fundamental technique in multi-agent dynamic programming and reinforcement learning (RL). Specifically, the value function of a global state $(s_1,s_2,\ldots,s_N)$ is often approximated as the sum of local functions: $V(s_1,s_2,\ldots,s_N)\approx\sum_{i=1}^N V_i(s_i)$. This approach traces back to the index policy in restless multi-armed bandit problems and has found various applications in modern RL systems. However, the theoretical justification for why this decomposition works so effectively remains underexplored. In this paper, we uncover the underlying mathematical structure that enables value decomposition. We demonstrate that a multi-agent Markov decision process (MDP) permits value decomposition if and only if its transition matrix is not "entangled" -- a concept analogous to quantum entanglement in quantum physics. Drawing inspiration from how physicists measure quantum entanglement, we introduce how to measure the "Markov entanglement" for multi-agent MDPs and show that this measure can be used to bound the decomposition error in general multi-agent MDPs. Using the concept of Markov entanglement, we proved that a widely-used class of index policies is weakly entangled and enjoys a sublinear $\mathcal O(\sqrt{N})$ scale of decomposition error for $N$-agent systems. Finally, we show how Markov entanglement can be efficiently estimated in practice, providing practitioners with an empirical proxy for the quality of value decomposition.
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