用大模型替代传统强化学习,关键看能否利用环境先验知识。
When are LLMs Sufficient Policy Optimizers for Sequential RL Tasks?

- 通过提示词引导大模型生成并优化可执行策略,结合反馈迭代改进。
- 在多个复杂任务中表现媲美甚至超过经典强化学习算法,交互次数更少。
- 适合有明确规则或结构化先验的任务,不适用于精细连续控制场景。
我们研究大语言模型(LLM)在序列强化学习任务中作为黑箱策略优化器的有效性,即何时可用大模型替代传统强化学习算法。为此,我们提出提示策略优化(PromptPO),一种迭代方法:将状态空间、动作空间和奖励函数的Python描述提示给大模型,并根据回放反馈生成与优化可执行策略。在高难度探索环境、Meta-World机器人任务及若干真实世界控制问题中,PromptPO通常达到或超越标准强化学习基线性能,且环境交互次数显著减少。为最大化预期回报,无需额外提示,所输出策略可从调优的比例控制器或基于规则的计划,过渡到运行价值迭代等规划算法的策略。结果表明,当大模型能利用环境或优化策略的先验知识时,基于大模型的策略优化是充分的。但在MuJoCo领域中,PromptPO表现逊于标准强化学习基线,揭示了其在需要精细连续控制场景中的潜在局限性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
We study when large language models (LLMs) can serve as effective black-box policy optimizers for reinforcement learning (RL) tasks, i.e., when can we replace classical RL algorithms with an LLM? We explore this question by introducing Prompted Policy Optimization (PromptPO), an iterative method that prompts an LLM with Python descriptions of the state space, action space, and reward function, then has it generate and refine executable policies based on rollout feedback. Across hard exploration environments, Meta-World robotics tasks, and several real-world control problems, PromptPO often matches or exceeds the performance of standard RL baselines while using substantially fewer environment interactions. To maximize expected return, and without further explicit prompting, the policies PromptPO outputs range from tuned proportional controllers or rule-based plans to policies that run planning algorithms like value iteration. Our results demonstrate that LLM-based policy optimization is sufficient when the LLM can leverage prior knowledge about the environment or optimization strategy. PromptPO underperforms standard RL baselines in MuJoCo domains. This demonstrates possible limitations of LLM-based policy optimization to settings that requiring fine-grained continuous control.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。