Gifting in multi-agent reinforcement learning

Multi-agent reinforcement learning has generally been studied under an assumption inherited from classical reinforcement learning: that the reward function is the exclusive property of the environment, and is only altered by external factors. In this work, we break free of this assumption and introduce peer rewarding, in which agents can deliberately influence each others’ reward function. We formalize this more general setting and discuss its properties in depth. We also empirically study gifting, a peer rewarding mechanism which allows agents to reward other agents as part of their action space. We demonstrate that this approach can greatly improve learning progression in a resource appropriation setting and provide a preliminary analysis of the complex effects of gifting on the learning dynamics.