纠正了过度悲观阻碍泛化的误解,强调结构对齐比悲观程度更重要。
Generalization in offline RL: The structure is more important than the amount of pessimism
- 用对称性结构替代盲目悲观,提升泛化能力
- 非对称轻微悲观反而不如对称过度悲观的泛化表现
- 数据增强应通过策略提取时的一致性损失实现
尽管悲观性可缓解离线强化学习中的过估计偏差,但过度保守常被认为损害泛化。本文证明,在上下文马尔可夫决策过程(CMDP)中,过度悲观本身并不妨碍最优泛化。成功泛化的关键不在于悲观程度,而在于悲观结构是否尊重最优解的内在对称性。我们证明:一个轻微悲观且非对称的价值函数,其泛化性能可能劣于一个过度悲观但对称的版本。在离线RL中,悲观结构由数据覆盖度决定,强制对称价值函数通常需数据增强(DA)等技术。受理论启发,我们主张应将DA通过策略提取阶段的一致性损失应用,而非常规地在扩增数据集上进行离线训练。该观点在旋转对称的reacher环境中,以IQL和CQL模型进行了实证验证。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
While pessimism counteracts overestimation bias in offline reinforcement learning (RL), being overly conservative has been associated with hindering certain forms of generalization. However, in this paper we demonstrate that being overly pessimistic does not inherently prevent optimal generalization in contextual MDPs (CMDPs). Instead, we argue successful generalization depends not on the amount of pessimism, but whether the pessimistic structure respects the underlying symmetries of the optimal solution. We prove that a mildly pessimistic, non-symmetric value function can generalize worse than an overly pessimistic, symmetric one. In offline RL, the structure of the pessimism is determined by the structure of the dataset coverage. As such, enforcing a symmetric value function can be non-trivial, and might require techniques such as data augmentation (DA). Inspired by our theoretical results, we argue that DA can best be applied through a consistency loss during policy extraction, rather than the common practice of (regular) offline training on an augmented dataset. This is empirically validated using IQL and CQL on a rotationally symmetric reacher environment.
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