mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Improve the efficiency of deep reinforcement learning through semantic exploration guided by natural language

arXiv 2309.11753 ↗First posted 21 Sep 2023cs.AIcited by 1

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Abstract (arXiv)

Reinforcement learning is a powerful technique for learning from trial and error, but it often requires a large number of interactions to achieve good performance. In some domains, such as sparse-reward tasks, an oracle that can provide useful feedback or guidance to the agent during the learning process is really of great importance. However, querying the oracle too frequently may be costly or impractical, and the oracle may not always have a clear answer for every situation. Therefore, we propose a novel method for interacting with the oracle in a selective and efficient way, using a retrieval-based approach. We assume that the interaction can be modeled as a sequence of templated questions and answers, and that there is a large corpus of previous interactions available. We use a neural network to encode the current state of the agent and the oracle, and retrieve the most relevant question from the corpus to ask the oracle. We then use the oracle's answer to update the agent's policy and value function. We evaluate our method on an object manipulation task. We show that our method can significantly improve the efficiency of RL by reducing the number of interactions needed to reach a certain level of performance, compared to baselines that do not use the oracle or use it in a naive way.

Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 31 of its 40 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 21 Sep 2023.

Builds on

31 of 40 references.

References · 31

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19 more
  1. 2019From Language to Goals: Inverse Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Instruction Followingcited by 67
  2. 2020Multi-agent Communication meets Natural Language: Synergies between Functional and Structural Language Learningcited by 66
  3. 2022Semantic Exploration from Language Abstractions and Pretrained Representationscited by 51
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  19. 2021Ask & Explore: Grounded Question Answering for Curiosity-Driven Explorationcited by 1

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