W. Bradley Knox

W. Bradley Knox, Stephane Hatgis-Kessell, Serena Booth et al.

The utility of reinforcement learning is limited by the alignment of reward functions with the interests of human stakeholders. One promising method for alignment is to learn the reward function from human-generated preferences between pairs of trajectory segments, a type of reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). These human preferences are typically assumed to be informed solely by partial return, the sum of rewards along each segment. We find this assumption to be flawed and propose modeling human preferences instead as informed by each segment's regret, a measure of a segment's deviation from optimal decision-making. Given infinitely many preferences generated according to regret, we prove that we can identify a reward function equivalent to the reward function that generated those preferences, and we prove that the previous partial return model lacks this identifiability property in multiple contexts. We empirically show that our proposed regret preference model outperforms the partial return preference model with finite training data in otherwise the same setting. Additionally, we find that our proposed regret preference model better predicts real human preferences and also learns reward functions from these preferences that lead to policies that are better human-aligned. Overall, this work establishes that the choice of preference model is impactful, and our proposed regret preference model provides an improvement upon a core assumption of recent research. We have open sourced our experimental code, the human preferences dataset we gathered, and our training and preference elicitation interfaces for gathering a such a dataset.

Joey Hejna, Rafael Rafailov, Harshit Sikchi et al.

Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has emerged as a popular paradigm for aligning models with human intent. Typically RLHF algorithms operate in two phases: first, use human preferences to learn a reward function and second, align the model by optimizing the learned reward via reinforcement learning (RL). This paradigm assumes that human preferences are distributed according to reward, but recent work suggests that they instead follow the regret under the user's optimal policy. Thus, learning a reward function from feedback is not only based on a flawed assumption of human preference, but also leads to unwieldy optimization challenges that stem from policy gradients or bootstrapping in the RL phase. Because of these optimization challenges, contemporary RLHF methods restrict themselves to contextual bandit settings (e.g., as in large language models) or limit observation dimensionality (e.g., state-based robotics). We overcome these limitations by introducing a new family of algorithms for optimizing behavior from human feedback using the regret-based model of human preferences. Using the principle of maximum entropy, we derive Contrastive Preference Learning (CPL), an algorithm for learning optimal policies from preferences without learning reward functions, circumventing the need for RL. CPL is fully off-policy, uses only a simple contrastive objective, and can be applied to arbitrary MDPs. This enables CPL to elegantly scale to high-dimensional and sequential RLHF problems while being simpler than prior methods.

W. Bradley Knox, Stephane Hatgis-Kessell, Sigurdur Orn Adalgeirsson et al.

We consider algorithms for learning reward functions from human preferences over pairs of trajectory segments, as used in reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). Most recent work assumes that human preferences are generated based only upon the reward accrued within those segments, or their partial return. Recent work casts doubt on the validity of this assumption, proposing an alternative preference model based upon regret. We investigate the consequences of assuming preferences are based upon partial return when they actually arise from regret. We argue that the learned function is an approximation of the optimal advantage function, $\hat{A^*_r}$, not a reward function. We find that if a specific pitfall is addressed, this incorrect assumption is not particularly harmful, resulting in a highly shaped reward function. Nonetheless, this incorrect usage of $\hat{A^*_r}$ is less desirable than the appropriate and simpler approach of greedy maximization of $\hat{A^*_r}$. From the perspective of the regret preference model, we also provide a clearer interpretation of fine tuning contemporary large language models with RLHF. This paper overall provides insight regarding why learning under the partial return preference model tends to work so well in practice, despite it conforming poorly to how humans give preferences.

Michael J. Q. Zhang, W. Bradley Knox, Eunsol Choi

Large language models (LLMs) must often respond to highly ambiguous user requests. In such cases, the LLM's best response may be to ask a clarifying question to elicit more information. Existing LLMs often respond by presupposing a single interpretation of such ambiguous requests, frustrating users who intended a different interpretation. We speculate this is caused by current preference data labeling practice, where LLM responses are evaluated only on their prior contexts. To address this, we assign preference labels by simulating their expected outcomes in future turns. This allows LLMs to learn to ask clarifying questions when it can generate responses that are tailored to each user interpretation in future turns. On open-domain QA datasets with multiple annotations, we evaluate systems based on their ability to ask clarifying questions to recover each user's interpretation and expected answer. We compare systems trained using our proposed preference labeling methods against standard methods, which assign preferences based on only prior context. Our method achieves a 5% improvement in F1 measured against the answer set from different interpretations of each query, showing the value of modeling future conversation turns. We further demonstrate that our method can be used to train models to judiciously determine when to ask clarifying questions, directly answering the question when clarification is unnecessary. In our experiments, we find that our method achieves a 3% improvement in accuracy of such judgments over existing methods.

Juheon Choi, Juyong Lee, Jian Kim et al.

When working on digital devices, people often face distractions that can lead to a decline in productivity and efficiency, as well as negative psychological and emotional impacts. To address this challenge, we introduce a novel Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistant that elicits a user's intention, assesses whether ongoing activities are in line with that intention, and provides gentle nudges when deviations occur. The system leverages a large language model to analyze screenshots, application titles, and URLs, issuing notifications when behavior diverges from the stated goal. Its detection accuracy is refined through initial clarification dialogues and continuous user feedback. In a three-week, within-subjects field deployment with 22 participants, we compared our assistant to both a rule-based intent reminder system and a passive baseline that only logged activity. Results indicate that our AI assistant effectively supports users in maintaining focus and aligning their digital behavior with their intentions. Our source code is publicly available at https://intentassistant.github.io

Micah Carroll, Adeline Foote, Kevin Feng et al.

When users are dissatisfied with recommendations from a recommender system, they often lack fine-grained controls for changing them. Large language models (LLMs) offer a solution by allowing users to guide their recommendations through natural language requests (e.g., "I want to see respectful posts with a different perspective than mine"). We propose a method, CTRL-Rec, that allows for natural language control of traditional recommender systems in real-time with computational efficiency. Specifically, at training time, we use an LLM to simulate whether users would approve of items based on their language requests, and we train embedding models that approximate such simulated judgments. We then integrate these user-request-based predictions into the standard weighting of signals that traditional recommender systems optimize. At deployment time, we require only a single LLM embedding computation per user request, allowing for real-time control of recommendations. In experiments with the MovieLens dataset, our method consistently allows for fine-grained control across a diversity of requests. In a study with 19 Letterboxd users, we find that CTRL-Rec was positively received by users and significantly enhanced users' sense of control and satisfaction with recommendations compared to traditional controls.

Sylee Dandekar, Shripad Deshmukh, Frank Chiu et al.

Human preferences in RLHF are typically modeled as a function of the human's reward function or corresponding optimal state-action values. In this work, we propose that human beliefs about the capabilities of the agent being trained also play a key role in preference generation. We examine two questions related to this hypothesis, one descriptive and one normative, respectively: Do human labelers' beliefs about agent capabilities affect the preferences that they provide? And what is the ideal set of beliefs about an agent -- and resulting preferences -- for humans to have? We propose a new preference model that incorporates human beliefs and provide a normative theory that bounds the error on the final learned policy based on the \textit{mismatch} between the human's beliefs and an idealized set of beliefs. We then confirm via a human study that beliefs about agent capabilities do, in fact, significantly affect preferences and can be influenced through simple interventions. Additionally, we empirically show through synthetic experiments that it is often suboptimal for human preference labelers to assume agent optimality. Collectively, these results theoretically and empirically demonstrate how reducing the mismatch between human beliefs and agent capabilities can lead to more performant RLHF and point toward new best practices for RLHF practitioners.

W. Bradley Knox, Alessandro Allievi, Holger Banzhaf et al.

This article considers the problem of diagnosing certain common errors in reward design. Its insights are also applicable to the design of cost functions and performance metrics more generally. To diagnose common errors, we develop 8 simple sanity checks for identifying flaws in reward functions. These sanity checks are applied to reward functions from past work on reinforcement learning (RL) for autonomous driving (AD), revealing near-universal flaws in reward design for AD that might also exist pervasively across reward design for other tasks. Lastly, we explore promising directions that may aid the design of reward functions for AD in subsequent research, following a process of inquiry that can be adapted to other domains.

Yuchen Cui, Qiping Zhang, Alessandro Allievi et al.

Reactions such as gestures, facial expressions, and vocalizations are an abundant, naturally occurring channel of information that humans provide during interactions. A robot or other agent could leverage an understanding of such implicit human feedback to improve its task performance at no cost to the human. This approach contrasts with common agent teaching methods based on demonstrations, critiques, or other guidance that need to be attentively and intentionally provided. In this paper, we first define the general problem of learning from implicit human feedback and then propose to address this problem through a novel data-driven framework, EMPATHIC. This two-stage method consists of (1) mapping implicit human feedback to relevant task statistics such as reward, optimality, and advantage; and (2) using such a mapping to learn a task. We instantiate the first stage and three second-stage evaluations of the learned mapping. To do so, we collect a dataset of human facial reactions while participants observe an agent execute a sub-optimal policy for a prescribed training task. We train a deep neural network on this data and demonstrate its ability to (1) infer relative reward ranking of events in the training task from prerecorded human facial reactions; (2) improve the policy of an agent in the training task using live human facial reactions; and (3) transfer to a novel domain in which it evaluates robot manipulation trajectories.