提出新算法让多个智能体在不共享全局信息时仍能高效协作,且有理论保证。
Learning to Hand Off: Provably Convergent Workflow Learning under Interface Constraints
- 设计基于接口约束的异步分布式强化学习算法,跨代理协作仅需一个标量信号
- 首次给出神经网络版本的有限样本收敛界,误差分解为三项可独立调控
- 适用于多LLM推理、路由、编程等场景,无需任何一方看到完整轨迹
研究在特定代理通过共享对象交接控制权的场景下的工作流学习,每个代理仅能观测该对象的局部函数及自身私有状态,且无集中式学习器访问联合轨迹——这正是跨越组织、供应商或信任边界的多智能体大模型流水线的运行模式。我们将其形式化为接口约束半马尔可夫决策过程(IC-SMDP),其决策时刻发生在交接点,并设计了神经版的IC-Q算法,该算法在每次交接时的跨代理协调仅需一个标量。主要结果是建立了神经IC-Q的有限样本上界,该上界可分解为三项独立可控的误差来源:神经函数逼近误差、接口表示差距、混合时间残差,均基于随机选项持续时间折扣。该成果要求将近似信息状态(AIS)框架从单智能体原始步马尔可夫决策过程推广至多智能体SMDP,并在随机持续时间下控制马尔可夫噪声,此前未见于相关工作。据我们所知,这是首个在去中心化部分可观测性下对神经Q学习的有限样本保证。四个实验:一个受控合成的IC-SMDP验证了上界各项的逐项有效性,以及多大模型数学推理、多智能体路由和多智能体CPU编程任务,结果显示IC-Q在不观察联合轨迹的情况下表现媲美集中式基准,且三项误差源均按预测随对应维度变化。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
We study workflow learning in a setting where specialized agents hand off control through a shared artifact, each agent observes only a local function of that artifact and its own private state, and no centralized learner accesses joint trajectories -- the operating regime of multi-agent LLM pipelines that span organizational, vendor, or trust boundaries. We formalize this regime as an interface-constrained semi-Markov decision process (IC-SMDP), whose decision epochs occur at handoff times, and design IC-$Q$, an asynchronous decentralized $Q$-learning algorithm in which cross-agent coordination at every handoff is exactly one scalar. Our main result is a finite-sample bound for neural IC-$Q$ that decomposes into three independently controllable error sources: neural function-approximation error, interface representation gap, and a mixing-time residual, under the random option-duration discount. Establishing this bound requires lifting the approximate information state (AIS) framework from single-agent primitive-step MDPs to multi-agent SMDPs and controlling Markovian noise under random duration, neither of which has been done in prior work. To our knowledge this is the first finite-sample guarantee for neural $Q$-learning under decentralized partial observability. Four experiments: a controlled synthetic IC-SMDP that validates the bound term-by-term, multi-LLM mathematical reasoning, multi-agent routing, and multi-agent CPU programming, show that IC-$Q$ matches a centralized oracle without any agent observing joint trajectories, with each of the three error sources scaling along its corresponding axis as the bound predicts.
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