nash
On Feasible Rewards in Multi-agent Inverse Reinforcement Learning
Multi-agent Inverse Reinforcement Learning (MAIRL) aims to recover agent reward functions from expert demonstrations. We characterize the feasible reward set in Markov games, identifying all reward functions that rationalize a given equilibrium. However, equilibrium-based observations are often ambiguous: a single Nash equilibrium can correspond to many reward structures, potentially changing the game's nature in multi-agent systems. We address this by introducing entropyregularized Markov games, which yield a unique equilibrium while preserving strategic incentives. For this setting, we provide a sample complexity analysis detailing how errors affect learned policy performance. Our work establishes theoretical foundations and practical insights for MAIRL.
Re-evaluating evaluation
Progress in machine learning is measured by careful evaluation on problems of outstanding common interest. However, the proliferation of benchmark suites and environments, adversarial attacks, and other complications has diluted the basic evaluation model by overwhelming researchers with choices. Deliberate or accidental cherry picking is increasingly likely, and designing well-balanced evaluation suites requires increasing effort. In this paper we take a step back and propose Nash averaging. The approach builds on a detailed analysis of the algebraic structure of evaluation in two basic scenarios: agent-vs-agent and agent-vs-task. The key strength of Nash averaging is that it automatically adapts to redundancies in evaluation data, so that results are not biased by the incorporation of easy tasks or weak agents. Nash averaging thus encourages maximally inclusive evaluation -- since there is no harm (computational cost aside) from including all available tasks and agents.
AT Proofs
We then follow the proof of Theorem 3 in Farnia and Tse [2016]. Our formulation differs from Nowak-Vila et al. [2020] in the fact that we allow probabilistic prediction to be ground truth. Proposition 4. Let G be a multi-graph. We follow the proof of Friesen [2019] for simple graphs. Proposition 5. Let G be a multi-graph.
Re-evaluating evaluation
Progress in machine learning is measured by careful evaluation on problems of outstanding common interest. However, the proliferation of benchmark suites and environments, adversarial attacks, and other complications has diluted the basic evaluation model by overwhelming researchers with choices. Deliberate or accidental cherry picking is increasingly likely, and designing well-balanced evaluation suites requires increasing effort. In this paper we take a step back and propose Nash averaging. The approach builds on a detailed analysis of the algebraic structure of evaluation in two basic scenarios: agent-vs-agent and agent-vs-task. The key strength of Nash averaging is that it automatically adapts to redundancies in evaluation data, so that results are not biased by the incorporation of easy tasks or weak agents. Nash averaging thus encourages maximally inclusive evaluation -- since there is no harm (computational cost aside) from including all available tasks and agents.
Rate optimal learning of equilibria from data
Freihaut, Till, Viano, Luca, Nevali, Emanuele, Cevher, Volkan, Geist, Matthieu, Ramponi, Giorgia
We close open theoretical gaps in Multi-Agent Imitation Learning (MAIL) by characterizing the limits of non-interactive MAIL and presenting the first interactive algorithm with near-optimal sample complexity. In the non-interactive setting, we prove a statistical lower bound that identifies the all-policy deviation concentrability coefficient as the fundamental complexity measure, and we show that Behavior Cloning (BC) is rate-optimal. For the interactive setting, we introduce a framework that combines reward-free reinforcement learning with interactive MAIL and instantiate it with an algorithm, MAIL-WARM. It improves the best previously known sample complexity from $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{-8})$ to $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{-2}),$ matching the dependence on $\varepsilon$ implied by our lower bound. Finally, we provide numerical results that support our theory and illustrate, in environments such as grid worlds, where Behavior Cloning fails to learn.
Adaptive Evolutionary Framework for Safe, Efficient, and Cooperative Autonomous Vehicle Interactions
Modern transportation systems face significant challenges in ensuring road safety, given serious injuries caused by road accidents. The rapid growth of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has prompted new traffic designs that aim to optimize interactions among AVs. However, effective interactions between AVs remains challenging due to the absence of centralized control. Besides, there is a need for balancing multiple factors, including passenger demands and overall traffic efficiency. Traditional rule-based, optimization-based, and game-theoretic approaches each have limitations in addressing these challenges. Rule-based methods struggle with adaptability and generalization in complex scenarios, while optimization-based methods often require high computational resources. Game-theoretic approaches, such as Stackelberg and Nash games, suffer from limited adaptability and potential inefficiencies in cooperative settings. This paper proposes an Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT)-based framework for AV interactions that overcomes these limitations by utilizing a decentralized and adaptive strategy evolution mechanism. A causal evaluation module (CEGT) is introduced to optimize the evolutionary rate, balancing mutation and evolution by learning from historical interactions. Simulation results demonstrate the proposed CEGT outperforms EGT and popular benchmark games in terms of lower collision rates, improved safety distances, higher speeds, and overall better performance compared to Nash and Stackelberg games across diverse scenarios and parameter settings.
Nash: Neural Adaptive Shrinkage for Structured High-Dimensional Regression
Sparse linear regression is a fundamental tool in data analysis. However, traditional approaches often fall short when covariates exhibit structure or arise from heterogeneous sources. In biomedical applications, covariates may stem from distinct modalities or be structured according to an underlying graph. We introduce Neural Adaptive Shrinkage (Nash), a unified framework that integrates covariate-specific side information into sparse regression via neural networks. Nash adaptively modulates penalties on a per-covariate basis, learning to tailor regularization without cross-validation. We develop a variational inference algorithm for efficient training and establish connections to empirical Bayes regression. Experiments on real data demonstrate that Nash can improve accuracy and adaptability over existing methods.