← Search

Thomas Kleine Buening

10 accepted papers

2026

Causal Imitation Learning under Expert-Observable and Expert-Unobservable Confounding

ICLR 2026poster

We propose a general framework for causal Imitation Learning (IL) with hidden confounders, which subsumes several existing settings. Our framework accounts for two types of hidden confounders: (a) variables observed by the expert but not by the imitator, and (b) confounding noise hidden from both. B…

Cited by 0SourceScholar
2026

Learning Reward Functions from Multiple Feedback Types with Amortized Variational Inference

ICML 2026poster

Reward learning typically relies on a single feedback type or combines multiple feedback types using manually weighted loss terms. Currently, it remains unclear how to jointly learn reward functions from heterogeneous feedback types such as demonstrations, comparisons, ratings, rankings, and stops t…

Cited by 0SourceScholar
2026

Reinforcement Learning via Self-Distillation

ICML 2026poster

Large language models are increasingly post-trained with reinforcement learning in verifiable domains such as code and math. Yet, current methods for reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) learn only from a scalar outcome reward per attempt, creating a severe credit-assignment bottlen…

Cited by 0SourceScholar
2026

Stackelberg Learning from Human Feedback: Preference Optimization as a Sequential Game

ICLR 2026poster

We introduce Stackelberg Learning from Human Feedback (SLHF), a new framework for preference optimization. SLHF frames the alignment problem as a sequential-move game between two policies: a Leader, which commits to an action, and a Follower, which responds conditionally on the Leader's action. This…

Cited by 0SourcecodeScholar
2025

Strategyproof Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback

NeurIPS 2025poster

We study Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) in settings where multiple labelers may strategically misreport feedback to steer the learned policy toward their own preferences. We show that existing RLHF algorithms, including recent pluralistic methods, are not strategyproof, and that e…

Cited by 0SourceScholar
2024

Bandits Meet Mechanism Design to Combat Clickbait in Online Recommendation

ICLR 2024spotlight

We study a strategic variant of the multi-armed bandit problem, which we coin the strategic click-bandit. This model is motivated by applications in online recommendation where the choice of recommended items depends on both the click-through rates and the post-click rewards. Like in classical bandi…

Cited by 8SourcePDFScholar
2024

Environment Design for Inverse Reinforcement Learning

ICML 2024oral

Learning a reward function from demonstrations suffers from low sample-efficiency. Even with abundant data, current inverse reinforcement learning methods that focus on learning from a single environment can fail to handle slight changes in the environment dynamics. We tackle these challenges throug…

2023

ANACONDA: An Improved Dynamic Regret Algorithm for Adaptive Non-Stationary Dueling Bandits

AISTATS 2023poster

We study the problem of non-stationary dueling bandits and provide the first adaptive dynamic regret algorithm for this problem. The only two existing attempts in this line of work fall short across multiple dimensions, including pessimistic measures of non-stationary complexity and non-adaptive par…

Cited by 8SourcePDFScholar
2023

Minimax-Bayes Reinforcement Learning

AISTATS 2023poster

While the Bayesian decision-theoretic framework offers an elegant solution to the problem of decision making under uncertainty, one question is how to appropriately select the prior distribution. One idea is to employ a worst-case prior. However, this is not as easy to specify in sequential decision…