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Research paper questions policy gradient methods in machine learning

A research paper published on arXiv questions the theoretical underpinnings of policy gradient methods in machine learning. The authors demonstrate that certain common policy gradient updates do not actually represent the gradient of any objective function, leading to potential theoretical misunderstandings and practical issues. They provide a counterexample where these updates can drive a policy towards a suboptimal deterministic state, highlighting a widespread confusion in the literature regarding discounted policy gradient methods. AI

IMPACT Clarifies theoretical foundations of reinforcement learning algorithms, potentially impacting future research and development.

RANK_REASON Academic paper published on arXiv discussing theoretical aspects of machine learning algorithms. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]

Read on arXiv cs.LG →

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Research paper questions policy gradient methods in machine learning

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Academic paper published on arXiv discussing theoretical aspects of machine learning algorithms. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. arXiv cs.LG TIER_1 English(EN) · Chris Nota, Philip S. Thomas ·

    Is the Policy Gradient a Gradient?

    arXiv:1906.07073v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The policy gradient theorem describes the gradient of the expected discounted return with respect to an agent's policy parameters. However, many policy gradient methods omit the outer discount factor, yielding an update that nee…