Publication Data
Theoretical Advantages of Lenient Learners: An Evolutionary Game Theoretic Perspective
Abstract: This paper presents the dynamics of multiple learning agents
from an evolutionary game theoretic perspective. We provide replicator dynamics models
for cooperative coevolutionary algorithms and for traditional multiagent Q-learning,
and we extend these differential equations to account for lenient learners: agents that
forgive possible mismatched teammate actions that resulted in low rewards. We use these
extended formal models to study the convergenceguarantees for these algorithms, and
also to visualize the basins of attraction to optimal and suboptimal solutions in two
benchmark coordination problems. We demonstrate that lenience provides learners with
more accurate information about the benefits of performing their actions, resulting in
higher likelihood of convergence to the globally optimal solution. In addition, our
analysis indicates that the choice of learning algorithm has an insignificant impact on
the overall performance of multiagent learning algorithms; rather, the performance of
these algorithms depends primarily on the level of lenience that the agents exhibit to
one another. Finally, our research supports the strength and generality of evolutionary
game theory as a backbone for multiagent learning.
