Paper ID: 2402.02665

Utility-Based Reinforcement Learning: Unifying Single-objective and Multi-objective Reinforcement Learning

Peter Vamplew, Cameron Foale, Conor F. Hayes, Patrick Mannion, Enda Howley, Richard Dazeley, Scott Johnson, Johan Källström, Gabriel Ramos, Roxana Rădulescu, Willem Röpke, Diederik M. Roijers

Research in multi-objective reinforcement learning (MORL) has introduced the utility-based paradigm, which makes use of both environmental rewards and a function that defines the utility derived by the user from those rewards. In this paper we extend this paradigm to the context of single-objective reinforcement learning (RL), and outline multiple potential benefits including the ability to perform multi-policy learning across tasks relating to uncertain objectives, risk-aware RL, discounting, and safe RL. We also examine the algorithmic implications of adopting a utility-based approach.

Submitted: Feb 5, 2024