研究动态环境中的上下文强化学习,如何利用旧经验应对变化的任务规则。
In-Context Reinforcement Learning under Non-Stationarity: A Survey

- 在不更新参数的前提下,从上下文推断当前任务规则
- 识别过时或失效的过往经验,避免误导决策
- 适合部署在快速变化环境中的智能体设计
决策预训练的Transformer、算法蒸馏、长上下文元强化学习和检索增强代理的发展,重新激发了对上下文强化学习(ICRL)的兴趣:即预训练或微调的决策模型能够从交互上下文中推断潜在任务规则并改进未来行为,而无需测试时参数更新。该领域关注的是,试错证据、奖励、转移、示范、反馈或检索到的经验是否能在上下文窗口内引发类似学习的计算。然而,现有ICRL综述多围绕预训练目标、架构、上下文格式、评估协议和理论机制组织,对非平稳设置的关注不足。在变化环境中,累积的上下文不仅是关于固定任务的更多证据:奖励设定、转移核、观测通道、动作接口、约束模型或示范与记忆分布可能与当前状态脱节。此前有用的上下文因此可能变得过时、误导,或在旧模式重现时再次有用。本文将非平稳ICRL定义为在部署策略参数固定的情况下,通过上下文进行适应的问题:策略必须同时推断当前决策规则以及哪些累积证据仍支持该规则。本文将其与元强化学习、决策序列建模、检索增强强化学习、价值/模型感知的ICRL及奖励反馈代理相关联,并围绕三个问题组织文献:什么发生了变化、变化如何展开、代理能否观测到变化。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The development of decision-pretrained transformers, algorithm distillation, long-context meta-RL, and retrieval-augmented agents has renewed interest in in-context reinforcement learning (ICRL): the ability of a pretrained or fine-tuned decision model to infer latent task rules and improve future behavior from interaction context, without test-time parameter updates. This line of work asks when trial-and-error evidence, rewards, transitions, demonstrations, feedback, or retrieved experience can make learning-like computation happen inside the context window. However, existing surveys of ICRL mainly organize the field around pretraining objectives, architectures, context formats, evaluation protocols, and theoretical mechanisms, while the non-stationary setting remains comparatively underexamined. In changing environments, accumulated context is not merely more evidence about a fixed task: the reward specification, transition kernel, observation channel, action interface, constraint model, or demonstration and memory distribution can fall out of alignment with the current regime. Previously useful context can therefore become stale, misleading, or useful again when an old regime returns. We survey non-stationary ICRL as the problem of adapting through context while deployed policy parameters remain fixed: the policy must infer both the current decision rule and which parts of its accumulated evidence still support that rule. We define non-stationary ICRL, relate it to meta-RL, decision sequence modeling, retrieval-augmented RL, value- and model-aware ICRL, and reward-feedback agents, and organize the literature along three questions: what changes, how the change unfolds, and how observable the change is to the agent.
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