Risk-Averse Reinforcement Learning with Itakura-Saito Loss
Authors: name: Igor Udovichenko; name: Olivier Croissant; name: Anita Toleutaeva; name: Evgeny Burnaev; name: Alexander Korotin
Published: 2025-05-22 17:18:07

Abstract: Risk-averse reinforcement learning finds application in various high-stakes
fields. Unlike classical reinforcement learning, which aims to maximize
expected returns, risk-averse agents choose policies that minimize risk,
occasionally sacrificing expected value. These preferences can be framed
through utility theory. We focus on the specific case of the exponential
utility function, where we can derive the Bellman equations and employ various
reinforcement learning algorithms with few modifications. However, these
methods suffer from numerical instability due to the need for exponent
computation throughout the process. To address this, we introduce a numerically
stable and mathematically sound loss function based on the Itakura-Saito
divergence for learning state-value and action-value functions. We evaluate our
proposed loss function against established alternatives, both theoretically and
empirically. In the experimental section, we explore multiple financial
scenarios, some with known analytical solutions, and show that our loss
function outperforms the alternatives.