ICML 2021spotlight10 citations

A Lower Bound for the Sample Complexity of Inverse Reinforcement Learning

Abi Komanduru, Jean Honorio

Abstract

Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is the task of finding a reward function that generates a desired optimal policy for a given Markov Decision Process (MDP). This paper develops an information-theoretic lower bound for the sample complexity of the finite state, finite action IRL problem. A geometric construction of $\beta$-strict separable IRL problems using spherical codes is considered. Properties of the ensemble size as well as the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the generated trajectories are derived. The resulting ensemble is then used along with Fano’s inequality to derive a sample complexity lower bound of $O(n \log n)$, where $n$ is the number of states in the MDP.

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v139-komanduru21a,
  title = 	 {A Lower Bound for the Sample Complexity of Inverse Reinforcement Learning},
  author =       {Komanduru, Abi and Honorio, Jean},
  booktitle = 	 {Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Machine Learning},
  pages = 	 {5676--5685},
  year = 	 {2021},
  editor = 	 {Meila, Marina and Zhang, Tong},
  volume = 	 {139},
  series = 	 {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research},
  month = 	 {18--24 Jul},
  publisher =    {PMLR},
  pdf = 	 {http://proceedings.mlr.press/v139/komanduru21a/komanduru21a.pdf},
  url = 	 {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v139/komanduru21a.html},
  abstract = 	 {Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) is the task of finding a reward function that generates a desired optimal policy for a given Markov Decision Process (MDP). This paper develops an information-theoretic lower bound for the sample complexity of the finite state, finite action IRL problem. A geometric construction of $\beta$-strict separable IRL problems using spherical codes is considered. Properties of the ensemble size as well as the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the generated trajectories are derived. The resulting ensemble is then used along with Fano’s inequality to derive a sample complexity lower bound of $O(n \log n)$, where $n$ is the number of states in the MDP.}
}