Haoyang Hong

Jose Efraim Aguilar Escamilla, Haoyang Hong, Jiawei Li et al.

We study reward poisoning attacks in reinforcement learning (RL), where an adversary manipulates rewards within constrained budgets to force the target RL agent to adopt a policy that aligns with the attacker's objectives. Prior works on reward poisoning mainly focused on sufficient conditions to design a successful attacker, while only a few studies discussed the infeasibility of targeted attacks. This paper provides the first precise necessity and sufficiency characterization of the attackability of a linear MDP under reward poisoning attacks. Our characterization draws a bright line between the vulnerable RL instances, and the intrinsically robust ones which cannot be attacked without large costs even running vanilla non-robust RL algorithms. Our theory extends beyond linear MDPs -- by approximating deep RL environments as linear MDPs, we show that our theoretical framework effectively distinguishes the attackability and efficiently attacks the vulnerable ones, demonstrating both the theoretical and practical significance of our characterization.

Muyun Lu, Haoyang Hong, Huazheng Wang et al.

As an extension of the classical multi-armed bandit problem, multi-fidelity multi-armed bandits (MF-MAB) enable individual arms to be evaluated using diverse feedback sources that vary in both cost and accuracy. Prior stochastic models typically assume fixed low-to-high fidelity discrepancies, whereas modern proxy sources, such as learning-based simulators and Large Language Models (LLMs), can be improved using additional calibration. We investigate adaptive MF-MAB with improving proxy sources, and focus on the canonical two-fidelity case in which the low-fidelity source becomes more informative with repeated use. To capture this dynamic, we introduce a selected-average mismatch bound that converts dynamic low-fidelity observations into improvement-aware confidence bounds for the high-fidelity target. We propose the Threshold-Based Adaptive Continuation Companion (TACC), an optimistic algorithm that uses a bounded continuation rule to decide when low-fidelity sampling remains cost-effective and when to escalate. We prove an instance-dependent regret bound showing that, for detected intermediate arms, adaptive continuation replaces logarithmic high-fidelity confirmation with bounded low-fidelity continuation. Experiments on synthetic bandits and an LLM-as-a-judge policy-evaluation task examine when continuation improves cost-weighted regret.

Haoyang Hong, Ioanna Papanikolaou, Sonali Parbhoo

Mitigating shortcuts, where models exploit spurious correlations in training data, remains a significant challenge for improving generalization. Regularization methods have been proposed to address this issue by enhancing model generalizability. However, we demonstrate that these methods can sometimes overregularize, inadvertently suppressing causal features along with spurious ones. In this work, we analyze the theoretical mechanisms by which regularization mitigates shortcuts and explore the limits of its effectiveness. Additionally, we identify the conditions under which regularization can successfully eliminate shortcuts without compromising causal features. Through experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets, our comprehensive analysis provides valuable insights into the strengths and limitations of regularization techniques for addressing shortcuts, offering guidance for developing more robust models.

Haoyang Hong, Jiajun Yin, Yuan Wang et al.

Multi-agent systems perform well on general reasoning tasks. However, the lack of training in specialized areas hinders their accuracy. Current training methods train a unified large language model (LLM) for all agents in the system. This may limit the performances due to different distributions underlying for different agents. Therefore, training multi-agent systems with distinct LLMs should be the next step to solve. However, this approach introduces optimization challenges. For example, agents operate at different frequencies, rollouts involve varying sub-agent invocations, and agents are often deployed across separate servers, disrupting end-to-end gradient flow. To address these issues, we propose M-GRPO, a hierarchical extension of Group Relative Policy Optimization designed for vertical Multi-agent systems with a main agent (planner) and multiple sub-agents (multi-turn tool executors). M-GRPO computes group-relative advantages for both main and sub-agents, maintaining hierarchical credit assignment. It also introduces a trajectory-alignment scheme that generates fixed-size batches despite variable sub-agent invocations. We deploy a decoupled training pipeline in which agents run on separate servers and exchange minimal statistics via a shared store. This enables scalable training without cross-server backpropagation. In experiments on real-world benchmarks (e.g., GAIA, XBench-DeepSearch, and WebWalkerQA), M-GRPO consistently outperforms both single-agent GRPO and multi-agent GRPO with frozen sub-agents, demonstrating improved stability and sample efficiency. These results show that aligning heterogeneous trajectories and decoupling optimization across specialized agents enhances tool-augmented reasoning tasks.

Zichen Wang, Haoyang Hong, Chuanhao Li et al. · pku

In multi-armed bandits with network interference (MABNI), the action taken by one node can influence the rewards of others, creating complex interdependence. While existing research on MABNI largely concentrates on minimizing regret, it often overlooks the crucial concern that an excessive emphasis on the optimal arm can undermine the inference accuracy for sub-optimal arms. Although initial efforts have been made to address this trade-off in single-unit scenarios, these challenges have become more pronounced in the context of MABNI. In this paper, we establish, for the first time, a theoretical Pareto frontier characterizing the trade-off between regret minimization and inference accuracy in adversarial (design-based) MABNI. We further introduce an anytime-valid asymptotic confidence sequence along with a corresponding algorithm, $\texttt{EXP3-N-CS}$, specifically designed to balance the trade-off between regret minimization and inference accuracy in this setting.