One of the main challenges in reinforcement learning (RL) is generalisation. In typical deep RL methods this is achieved by approximating the optimal value function with a low-dimensional representation using a deep network. While this approach works well in many domains, in domains where the optimal value function cannot easily be reduced to a low-dimensional representation, learning can be very slow and unstable. This paper contributes towards tackling such challenging domains, by proposing a new method, called Hybrid Reward Architecture (HRA). HRA takes as input a decomposed reward function and learns a separate value function for each component reward function. Because each component typically only depends on a subset of all features, the overall value function is much smoother and can be easier approximated by a low-dimensional representation, enabling more effective learning. We demonstrate HRA on a toy-problem and the Atari game Ms. Pac-Man, where HRA achieves above-human performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the main challenges in reinforcement learning (RL) is generalisation. In typical deep RL methods this is achieved by approximating the optimal value function with a low-dimensional representation using a deep network. While this approach works well in many domains, in domains where the optimal value function cannot easily be reduced to a low-dimensional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13556],"msr-publication-type":[193716],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-401741","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS)","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2017-06-13","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"401744","msr_publicationurl":"https:\/\/papers.nips.cc\/paper\/7123-hybrid-reward-architecture-for-reinforcement-learning","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"1706.04208","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/1706.04208.pdf","id":401744,"label_id":0},{"type":"url","title":"https:\/\/papers.nips.cc\/paper\/7123-hybrid-reward-architecture-for-reinforcement-learning","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/papers.nips.cc\/paper\/7123-hybrid-reward-architecture-for-reinforcement-learning"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"havansei","user_id":36656,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=havansei"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"mefatemi","user_id":36626,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=mefatemi"},{"type":"guest","value":"joshua-romoff","user_id":399446,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=joshua-romoff"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"rolaroch","user_id":36623,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=rolaroch"},{"type":"text","value":"Tavian Barnes","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Jeffrey Tsang","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[437514],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[395930,663258],"msr_project":[577638],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"inproceedings","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":577638,"post_title":"Hybrid Reward Architecture","post_name":"hybrid-reward-architecture","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2019-05-02 12:12:59","post_modified":"2020-11-12 13:42:34","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/hybrid-reward-architecture\/","post_excerpt":"For reinforcement learning (RL), where the goal is to learn good behavior in a data-driven way, the Arcade Learning Environment (ALE), which provides access to a large number of Atari 2600 games, has been a popular test-bed.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/577638"}]}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/401741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/401741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401750,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/401741\/revisions\/401750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-content-type?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-product-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-product-type?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-platform?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-download-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-download-source?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=401741"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=401741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}