N$\text{A}^\text{2}$Q: Neural Attention Additive Model for Interpretable Multi-Agent Q-Learning
Year: 2023
Type: preprint
Abstract: Value decomposition is widely used in cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning, however, its implicit credit assignment mechanism is not yet fully understood due to black-box networks. In this work, we study an interpretable value decomposition framework via the family of generalized additive models. We present a novel method, named Neural Attention Additive Q-learning (N$\text{A}^\text{2}$Q), providing inherent intelligibility of collaboration behavior. N$\text{A}^\text{2}$Q can explicitly factorize the optimal joint policy induced by enriching shape functions to model all possible coalitions of agents into individual policies. Moreover, we construct identity semantics to promote estimating credits together with the global state and individual value functions, where local semantic masks help us diagnose whether each agent captures relevant-task information. Extensive experiments show that N$\text{A}^\text{2}$Q consistently achieves superior performance compared to different state-of-the-art methods on all challenging tasks, while yielding human-like interpretability.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Liu, Zichuan, Zhu, Yuanyang, Chen, Chunlin
Institution: Nanjing University
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Award: G7996831764
OpenAlex ID: W4367190484