Haitham Bou Ammar

NeurIPS Conference 2024 Conference Paper

Group Robust Preference Optimization in Reward-free RLHF

• Shyam Sundhar Ramesh
• Yifan Hu
• Iason Chaimalas
• Viraj Mehta
• Pier Giuseppe Sessa
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Ilija Bogunovic

Adapting large language models (LLMs) for specific tasks usually involves fine-tuning through reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) on preference data. While these data often come from diverse labelers' groups (e. g. , different demographics, ethnicities, company teams, etc. ), traditional RLHF approaches adopt a "one-size-fits-all" approach, i. e. , they indiscriminately assume and optimize a single preference model, thus not being robust to unique characteristics and needs of the various groups. To address this limitation, we propose a novel Group Robust Preference Optimization (GRPO) method to align LLMs to individual groups' preferences robustly. Our approach builds upon reward-free direct preference optimization methods, but unlike previous approaches, it seeks a robust policy which maximizes the worst-case group performance. To achieve this, GRPO adaptively and sequentially weights the importance of different groups, prioritizing groups with worse cumulative loss. We theoretically study the feasibility of GRPO and analyze its convergence for the log-linear policy class. By fine-tuning LLMs with GRPO using diverse group-based global opinion data, we significantly improved performance for the worst-performing groups, reduced loss imbalances across groups, and improved probability accuracies compared to non-robust baselines.

NeurIPS Conference 2023 Conference Paper

End-to-End Meta-Bayesian Optimisation with Transformer Neural Processes

• Alexandre Maraval
• Matthieu Zimmer
• Antoine Grosnit
• Haitham Bou Ammar

Meta-Bayesian optimisation (meta-BO) aims to improve the sample efficiency of Bayesian optimisation by leveraging data from related tasks. While previous methods successfully meta-learn either a surrogate model or an acquisition function independently, joint training of both components remains an open challenge. This paper proposes the first end-to-end differentiable meta-BO framework that generalises neural processes to learn acquisition functions via transformer architectures. We enable this end-to-end framework with reinforcement learning (RL) to tackle the lack of labelled acquisition data. Early on, we notice that training transformer-based neural processes from scratch with RL is challenging due to insufficient supervision, especially when rewards are sparse. We formalise this claim with a combinatorial analysis showing that the widely used notion of regret as a reward signal exhibits a logarithmic sparsity pattern in trajectory lengths. To tackle this problem, we augment the RL objective with an auxiliary task that guides part of the architecture to learn a valid probabilistic model as an inductive bias. We demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art regret results against various baselines in experiments on standard hyperparameter optimisation tasks and also outperforms others in the real-world problems of mixed-integer programming tuning, antibody design, and logic synthesis for electronic design automation.

NeurIPS Conference 2023 Conference Paper

Framework and Benchmarks for Combinatorial and Mixed-variable Bayesian Optimization

• Kamil Dreczkowski
• Antoine Grosnit
• Haitham Bou Ammar

This paper introduces a modular framework for Mixed-variable and Combinatorial Bayesian Optimization (MCBO) to address the lack of systematic benchmarking and standardized evaluation in the field. Current MCBO papers often introduce non-diverse or non-standard benchmarks to evaluate their methods, impeding the proper assessment of different MCBO primitives and their combinations. Additionally, papers introducing a solution for a single MCBO primitive often omit benchmarking against baselines that utilize the same methods for the remaining primitives. This omission is primarily due to the significant implementation overhead involved, resulting in a lack of controlled assessments and an inability to showcase the merits of a contribution effectively. To overcome these challenges, our proposed framework enables an effortless combination of Bayesian Optimization components, and provides a diverse set of synthetic and real-world benchmarking tasks. Leveraging this flexibility, we implement 47 novel MCBO algorithms and benchmark them against seven existing MCBO solvers and five standard black-box optimization algorithms on ten tasks, conducting over 4000 experiments. Our findings reveal a superior combination of MCBO primitives outperforming existing approaches and illustrate the significance of model fit and the use of a trust region. We make our MCBO library available under the MIT license at \url{https: //github. com/huawei-noah/HEBO/tree/master/MCBO}.

NeurIPS Conference 2023 Conference Paper

Online PCA in Converging Self-consistent Field Equations

• Xihan Li
• Xiang Chen
• Rasul Tutunov
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Lei Wang
• Jun Wang

Self-consistent Field (SCF) equation is a type of nonlinear eigenvalue problem in which the matrix to be eigen-decomposed is a function of its own eigenvectors. It is of great significance in computational science for its connection to the Schrödinger equation. Traditional fixed-point iteration methods for solving such equations suffer from non-convergence issues. In this work, we present a novel perspective on such SCF equations as a principal component analysis (PCA) for non-stationary time series, in which a distribution and its own top principal components are mutually updated over time, and the equilibrium state of the model corresponds to the solution of the SCF equations. By the new perspective, online PCA techniques are able to engage in so as to enhance the convergence of the model towards the equilibrium state, acting as a new set of tools for converging the SCF equations. With several numerical adaptations, we then develop a new algorithm for converging the SCF equation, and demonstrated its high convergence capacity with experiments on both synthesized and real electronic structure scenarios.

NeurIPS Conference 2022 Conference Paper

Enhancing Safe Exploration Using Safety State Augmentation

• Aivar Sootla
• Alexander Cowen-Rivers
• Jun Wang
• Haitham Bou Ammar

Safe exploration is a challenging and important problem in model-free reinforcement learning (RL). Often the safety cost is sparse and unknown, which unavoidably leads to constraint violations - a phenomenon ideally to be avoided in safety-critical applications. We tackle this problem by augmenting the state-space with a safety state, which is nonnegative if and only if the constraint is satisfied. The value of this state also serves as a distance toward constraint violation, while its initial value indicates the available safety budget. This idea allows us to derive policies for scheduling the safety budget during training. We call our approach Simmer (Safe policy IMproveMEnt for RL) to reflect the careful nature of these schedules. We apply this idea to two safe RL problems: RL with constraints imposed on an average cost, and RL with constraints imposed on a cost with probability one. Our experiments suggest that "simmering" a safe algorithm can improve safety during training for both settings. We further show that Simmer can stabilize training and improve the performance of safe RL with average constraints.

TMLR Journal 2022 Journal Article

Online Double Oracle

• Le Cong Dinh
• Stephen Marcus McAleer
• Zheng Tian
• Nicolas Perez-Nieves
• Oliver Slumbers
• David Henry Mguni
• Jun Wang
• Haitham Bou Ammar

Solving strategic games with huge action spaces is a critical yet under-explored topic in economics, operations research and artificial intelligence. This paper proposes new learning algorithms for solving two-player zero-sum normal-form games where the number of pure strategies is prohibitively large. Specifically, we combine no-regret analysis from online learning with Double Oracle (DO) from game theory. Our method---\emph{Online Double Oracle (ODO)}---is provably convergent to a Nash equilibrium (NE). Most importantly, unlike normal DO, ODO is \emph{rational} in the sense that each agent in ODO can exploit a strategic adversary with a regret bound of $\mathcal{O}(\sqrt{ k \log(k)/T})$, where $k$ is not the total number of pure strategies, but rather the size of \emph{effective strategy set}. In many applications, we empirically show that $k$ is linearly dependent on the support size of the NE. On tens of different real-world matrix games, ODO outperforms DO, PSRO, and no-regret algorithms such as Multiplicative Weights Update by a significant margin, both in terms of convergence rate to a NE, and average payoff against strategic adversaries.

NeurIPS Conference 2022 Conference Paper

Optimistic Tree Searches for Combinatorial Black-Box Optimization

• Cedric Malherbe
• Antoine Grosnit
• Rasul Tutunov
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Jun Wang

The optimization of combinatorial black-box functions is pervasive in computer science and engineering. However, the combinatorial explosion of the search space and lack of natural ordering pose significant challenges for current techniques from a theoretical and practical perspective, and require new algorithmic ideas. In this paper, we propose to adapt the recent advances in tree searches and partitioning techniques to design and analyze novel black-box combinatorial solvers. A first contribution is the analysis of a first tree-search algorithm called Optimistic Lipschitz Tree Search (OLTS) which assumes the Lipschitz constant of the function to be known. Linear convergence rates are provided for this algorithm under specific conditions, improving upon the logarithmic rates of baselines. An adaptive version, called Optimistic Combinatorial Tree Search (OCTS), is then introduced for the more realistic setup where we do not have any information on the Lipschitz constant of the function. Similar theoretical guarantees are shown to hold for OCTS and a numerical assessment is provided to illustrate the potential of tree searches with respect to state-of-the-art methods over typical benchmarks.

AAMAS Conference 2021 Conference Paper

Diverse Auto-Curriculum is Critical for Successful Real-World Multiagent Learning Systems

• Yaodong Yang
• Jun Luo
• Ying Wen
• Oliver Slumbers
• Daniel Graves
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Jun Wang
• Matthew E. Taylor

Multiagent reinforcement learning (MARL) has achieved a remarkable amount of success in solving various types of video games. A cornerstone of this success is the auto-curriculum framework, which shapes the learning process by continually creating new challenging tasks for agents to adapt to, thereby facilitating the acquisition of new skills. In order to extend MARL methods to realworld domains outside of video games, we envision in this blue sky paper that maintaining a diversity-aware auto-curriculum is critical for successful MARL applications. Specifically, we argue that behavioural diversity is a pivotal, yet under-explored, component for real-world multiagent learning systems, and that significant work remains in understanding how to design a diversity-aware auto-curriculum. We list four open challenges for auto-curriculum techniques, which we believe deserve more attention from this community. Towards validating our vision, we recommend modelling realistic interactive behaviours in autonomous driving as an important test bed, and recommend the SMARTS/ULTRA benchmark.

AAAI Conference 2020 Conference Paper

Learning to Communicate Implicitly by Actions

• Zheng Tian
• Shihao Zou
• Ian Davies
• Tim Warr
• Lisheng Wu
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Jun Wang

In situations where explicit communication is limited, human collaborators act by learning to: (i) infer meaning behind their partner’s actions, and (ii) convey private information about the state to their partner implicitly through actions. The first component of this learning process has been well-studied in multi-agent systems, whereas the second — which is equally crucial for successful collaboration — has not. To mimic both components mentioned above, thereby completing the learning process, we introduce a novel algorithm: Policy Belief Learning (PBL). PBL uses a belief module to model the other agent’s private information and a policy module to form a distribution over actions informed by the belief module. Furthermore, to encourage communication by actions, we propose a novel auxiliary reward which incentivizes one agent to help its partner to make correct inferences about its private information. The auxiliary reward for communication is integrated into the learning of the policy module. We evaluate our approach on a set of environments including a matrix game, particle environment and the non-competitive bidding problem from contract bridge. We show empirically that this auxiliary reward is effective and easy to generalize. These results demonstrate that our PBL algorithm can produce strong pairs of agents in collaborative games where explicit communication is disabled.

NeurIPS Conference 2019 Conference Paper

Multi-View Reinforcement Learning

• Minne Li
• Lisheng Wu
• Jun Wang
• Haitham Bou Ammar

This paper is concerned with multi-view reinforcement learning (MVRL), which allows for decision making when agents share common dynamics but adhere to different observation models. We define the MVRL framework by extending partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) to support more than one observation model and propose two solution methods through observation augmentation and cross-view policy transfer. We empirically evaluate our method and demonstrate its effectiveness in a variety of environments. Specifically, we show reductions in sample complexities and computational time for acquiring policies that handle multi-view environments.

NeurIPS Conference 2018 Conference Paper

Distributed Multitask Reinforcement Learning with Quadratic Convergence

• Rasul Tutunov
• Dongho Kim
• Haitham Bou Ammar

Multitask reinforcement learning (MTRL) suffers from scalability issues when the number of tasks or trajectories grows large. The main reason behind this drawback is the reliance on centeralised solutions. Recent methods exploited the connection between MTRL and general consensus to propose scalable solutions. These methods, however, suffer from two drawbacks. First, they rely on predefined objectives, and, second, exhibit linear convergence guarantees. In this paper, we improve over state-of-the-art by deriving multitask reinforcement learning from a variational inference perspective. We then propose a novel distributed solver for MTRL with quadratic convergence guarantees.

AAAI Conference 2017 Conference Paper

Scalable Multitask Policy Gradient Reinforcement Learning

• Salam El Bsat
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Matthew Taylor

Policy search reinforcement learning (RL) allows agents to learn autonomously with limited feedback. However, such methods typically require extensive experience for successful behavior due to their tabula rasa nature. Multitask RL is an approach, which aims to reduce data requirements by allowing knowledge transfer between tasks. Although successful, current multitask learning methods suffer from scalability issues when considering large number of tasks. The main reasons behind this limitation is the reliance on centralized solutions. This paper proposes to a novel distributed multitask RL framework, improving the scalability across many different types of tasks. Our framework maps multitask RL to an instance of general consensus and develops an efficient decentralized solver. We justify the correctness of the algorithm both theoretically and empirically: we first proof an improvement of convergence speed to an order of O 1 k with k being the number of iterations, and then show our algorithm surpassing others on multiple dynamical system benchmarks.

IJCAI Conference 2016 Conference Paper

Theoretically-Grounded Policy Advice from Multiple Teachers in Reinforcement Learning Settings with Applications to Negative Transfer

• Yusen Zhan
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Matthew E. Taylor

Policy advice is a transfer learning method where a student agent is able to learn faster via advice from a teacher. However, both this and other reinforcement learning transfer methods have little theoretical analysis. This paper formally defines a setting where multiple teacher agents can provide advice to a student and introduces an algorithm to leverage both autonomous exploration and teacher's advice. Our regret bounds justify the intuition that good teachers help while bad teachers hurt. Using our formalization, we are also able to quantify, for the first time, when negative transfer can occur within such a reinforcement learning setting.

IJCAI Conference 2015 Conference Paper

Autonomous Cross-Domain Knowledge Transfer in Lifelong Policy Gradient Reinforcement Learning

• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Eric Eaton
• Jose Marcio Luna
• Paul Ruvolo

Online multi-task learning is an important capability for lifelong learning agents, enabling them to acquire models for diverse tasks over time and rapidly learn new tasks by building upon prior experience. However, recent progress toward lifelong reinforcement learning (RL) has been limited to learning from within a single task domain. For truly versatile lifelong learning, the agent must be able to autonomously transfer knowledge between different task domains. A few methods for cross-domain transfer have been developed, but these methods are computationally inefficient for scenarios where the agent must learn tasks consecutively. In this paper, we develop the first cross-domain lifelong RL framework. Our approach efficiently optimizes a shared repository of transferable knowledge and learns projection matrices that specialize that knowledge to different task domains. We provide rigorous theoretical guarantees on the stability of this approach, and empirically evaluate its performance on diverse dynamical systems. Our results show that the proposed method can learn effectively from interleaved task domains and rapidly acquire high performance in new domains.

AAAI Conference 2015 Conference Paper

Unsupervised Cross-Domain Transfer in Policy Gradient Reinforcement Learning via Manifold Alignment

• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Eric Eaton
• Paul Ruvolo
• Matthew Taylor

The success of applying policy gradient reinforcement learning (RL) to difficult control tasks hinges crucially on the ability to determine a sensible initialization for the policy. Transfer learning methods tackle this problem by reusing knowledge gleaned from solving other related tasks. In the case of multiple task domains, these algorithms require an inter-task mapping to facilitate knowledge transfer across domains. However, there are currently no general methods to learn an inter-task mapping without requiring either background knowledge that is not typically present in RL settings, or an expensive analysis of an exponential number of inter-task mappings in the size of the state and action spaces. This paper introduces an autonomous framework that uses unsupervised manifold alignment to learn intertask mappings and effectively transfer samples between different task domains. Empirical results on diverse dynamical systems, including an application to quadrotor control, demonstrate its effectiveness for cross-domain transfer in the context of policy gradient RL.

AAAI Conference 2014 Conference Paper

Online Multi-Task Gradient Temporal-Difference Learning

• Vishnu Sreenivasan
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Eric Eaton

AAAI Conference 2014 Conference Paper

Theory of Cooperation in Complex Social Networks

• Bijan Ranjbar-Sahraei
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Daan Bloembergen
• Karl Tuyls
• Gerhard Weiss

This paper presents a theoretical as well as empirical study on the evolution of cooperation on complex social networks, following the continuous action iterated prisoner’s dilemma (CAIPD) model. In particular, convergence to network-wide agreement is proven for both evolutionary networks with fixed interaction dynamics, as well as for coevolutionary networks where these dynamics change over time. Moreover, an extension to the CAIPD model is proposed that allows to model influence on the evolution of cooperation in social networks. As such, this work contributes to a better understanding of behavioral change on social networks, and provides a first step towards their active control.

IJCAI Conference 2013 Conference Paper

Conditional Restricted Boltzmann Machines for Negotiations in Highly Competitive and Complex Domains

• Siqi Chen
• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Karl Tuyls
• Gerhard Weiss

Learning in automated negotiations, while useful, is hard because of the indirect way the target function can be observed and the limited amount of experience available to learn from. This paper proposes two novel opponent modeling techniques based on deep learning methods. Moreover, to improve the learning efficacy of negotiating agents, the second approach is also capable of transferring knowledge efficiently between negotiation tasks. Transfer is conducted by automatically mapping the source knowledge to the target in a rich feature space. Experiments show that using these techniques the proposed strategies outperform existing state-of-the-art agents in highly competitive and complex negotiation domains. Furthermore, the empirical game theoretic analysis reveals the robustness of the proposed strategies.

AAMAS Conference 2012 Conference Paper

Reinforcement Learning Transfer via Sparse Coding

• Haitham Bou Ammar
• Karl Tuyls
• Matthew Taylor
• Kurt Driessen
• Gerhard Weiss

Although Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been successfully deployed in a variety of tasks, learning speed remains a fundamental problem for applying RL in complex environments. Transfer learning aims to ameliorate this shortcoming by speeding up learning through the adaptation of previously learned behaviors in similar tasks. Transfer techniques often use an inter-task mapping, which determines how a pair of tasks are related. Instead of relying on a hand-coded inter-task mapping, this paper proposes a novel transfer learning method capable of autonomously creating an inter-task mapping by using a novel combination of sparse coding, sparse projection learning and sparse Gaussian processes. We also propose two new transfer algorithms (\emph{TrLSPI} and \emph{TrFQI}) based on least squares policy iteration and fitted-Q-iteration. Experiments not only show successful transfer of information between similar tasks, inverted pendulum to cart pole, but also between two very different domains: mountain car to cart pole. This paper empirically shows that the learned inter-task mapping can be successfully used to (1) improve the performance of a learned policy on a fixed number of samples, (2) reduce the learning times needed by the algorithms to converge to a policy on a fixed number of samples, and (3) converge faster to a near-optimal policy given a large number of samples.