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Artificial Intelligence
 
Data Science
 
Algorithms

[Archimedes Talks Series] Can Q-learning be improved with Advice?

Dates
2024-06-12 11:00 - 13:00
Venue
Artemidos 1 - Amphitheater

Archimedes is proud to host a Talk on "Can Q-learning be improved with Advice?" by Noah Golowich(MIT) as part of our Prediction Study Group this following Wednesday at 11am.

Title: Can Q-learning be improved with Advice?

Presenter: Noah Golowich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract: Despite rapid progress in theoretical reinforcement learning (RL) over the last few years, most of the known guarantees are worst-case in nature, failing to take advantage of structure that may be known a priori about a given RL problem at hand. In this paper we address the question of whether worst-case lower bounds for regret in online learning of Markov decision processes (MDPs) can be circumvented when information about the MDP, in the form of predictions about its optimal Q-value function, is given to the algorithm. We show that when the predictions about the optimal Q-value function satisfy a reasonably weak condition we call distillation, then we can improve regret bounds by replacing the set of state-action pairs with the set of state-action pairs on which the predictions are grossly inaccurate. This improvement holds for both uniform regret bounds and gap-based ones. Further, we are able to achieve this property with an algorithm that achieves sublinear regret when given arbitrary predictions (i.e., even those which are not a distillation). Our work extends a recent line of work on algorithms with predictions, which has typically focused on simple online problems such as caching and scheduling, to the more complex and general problem of reinforcement learning. 

Bio: Noah Golowich (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) was advised by Constantinos Daskalakis and Ankur Moitra. He completed his A.B. and S.M. at Harvard University. His research interests lie in theoretical machine learning, with a particular focus on the connections between multi-agent learning, game theory, and online learning, and in theoretical reinforcement learning. He is supported by a Fannie & John Hertz Foundation Fellowship and an NSF Graduate Fellowship.

 

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Vision

To position Greece as a leading player in AI and Data Science

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Mission

To build an AI Excellence Hub in Greece where the international research community can connect, groundbreaking ideas can thrive, and the next generation of scientists emerges, shaping a brighter future for Greece and the world

 

Welcome to ARCHIMEDES, a vibrant research hub connecting the global AI and Data Science research community fostering groundbreaking research in Greece and beyond. Its dedicated core team, comprising lead researchers, affiliated researchers, Post-Docs, PhDs and interns, is committed to advancing basic and applied research in Artificial Intelligence and its supporting disciplines, including Algorithms, Statistics, Learning Theory, and Game Theory organized around 8 core research areas. By collaborating with Greek and Foreign Universities and Research Institutes, ARCHIMEDES disseminates its research findings fostering knowledge exchange and providing enriching opportunities for students. Leveraging AI to address real-world challenges, ARCHIMEDES promotes innovation within the Greek ecosystem and extends its societal impact. Established in January 2022, as a research unit of the Athena Research Center with support from the Committee Greece 2021, ARCHIMEDES is funded for its first four years by the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).

 
 

NEWS

 
BabyLM Challenge Award at EMNLP 2025 Workshop!

BabyLM Challenge Award at EMNLP 2025 Workshop!

Researchers Despoina Kosmopoulou, Efthymios Georgiou, Vaggelis Dorovatas, Georgios Paraskevopoulos, and Alexandros Potamianos from Archimedes, Athena Research Center, Greece, from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, the University of Bern, Switzerland and the Institute of Language and Signal Processing (ILSP) of the Athena Research Center, Greece, received the BabyLM Challenge Award (Strict track) for NLP tasks at "The First BabyLM Workshop: Accelerating Language Modeling Research with Cognitively Plausible Datasets", which took place in Suzhou, China, during the 30th Annual Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2025).

Two Best Paper Awards at BIBE 2025

Two Best Paper Awards at BIBE 2025

Researchers from the Archimedes Unit of the Athena Research Center, Greece, together with researchers from the Computer Science Department of the University of Crete, Greece; Stelios M. Smirnakis, Associate Neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, USA and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, USA; and Maria Papadopouli, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Crete, Greece, Affiliated Researcher at the Institute of Computer Science, FORTH, Crete, Greece and Lead Researcher at Archimedes, Athena Research Center, Greece, received two Best Paper Awards at the 25th annual IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Bioengineering (BIBE 2025), which took place on November 6-8, 2025 in Athens, Greece.

10 Papers Accepted at EMNLP 2025!

10 Papers Accepted at EMNLP 2025!

The Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) is a major annual conference for researchers in natural language processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. It has been organized by the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Special Interest Group on Data (SIGDAT) since 1996 and is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Archimedes Seminar by Mark Girolami, Chief Scientist of the Alan Turing Institute, UK

Archimedes Seminar by Mark Girolami, Chief Scientist of the Alan Turing Institute, UK

On Friday 7 November, 2025, from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm, at the Archimedes Amphitheatre (1 Artemidos Street, 15125, Marousi, Archimedes, Athena Research Center, Greece), Mark Girolami, Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering within the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, UK, where he also holds the Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Data Centric Engineering, and Chief Scientist of the Alan Turing Institute, UK, will deliver an Archimedes Seminar on "Statistical Finite Element Methods."

Archimedes Talk by Alexandra Meliou on

Archimedes Talk by Alexandra Meliou on "Data Analysis and Manipulation through a Constrained Optimization Lens"

On Tuesday 4 November, 2025, from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm, at the Archimedes Amphitheatre (1 Artemidos Street, 15125, Marousi, Archimedes, Athena Research Center, Greece), Professor Alexandra Meliou, Professor at the College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, and a visiting researcher at the Archimedes Research Unit, Athena Research Center, Greece, will deliver an Archimedes talk on "Data Analysis and Manipulation through a Constrained Optimization Lens."

 
 

The project “ARCHIMEDES Unit: Research in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Algorithms” with code OPS 5154714 is implemented by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0” and is funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

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