ICML2026

GRPO-based Cluster Decision Agent for Unknown-K\boldsymbol{K} Multi-view Clustering

Xuqian Xue, Jun Zhang, Qi Cai, Zhizhong Huang, Hongming Shan, Junping Zhang

Abstract

Existing contrastive multi-view clustering methods rely on a pre-defined cluster number, limiting their flexibility in real-world scenarios lacking prior knowledge. To address this, we propose GROK, a novel framework driven by a cluster decision agent for unknown-KK multi-view clustering. It pioneers the adaptation of group relative policy optimization (GRPO) —a reinforcement learning strategy for LLM reasoning— into the unsupervised domain to autonomously determine the optimal KK. Specifically, the agent orchestrates the clustering process through three synergistic phases. First, in the state perception phase, we employ a structure-aware adaptive backbone to aggregate multi-view data, providing the agent with consistent and discriminative consensus observations. Second, in the group decision phase, we introduce an action space divide-and-conquer strategy and an adaptive reward function. Equipped with these mechanisms, the agent performs group sampling and relative advantage estimation within the discrete action space of candidate KK values, autonomously searching for the optimal KK via reward maximization. Finally, via geometric feedback, geometric clustering guidance mechanism transforms the agent's structural hypotheses into explicit differentiable constraints to reshape feature manifolds, thereby closing the perception-decision-feedback loop. Experimental results demonstrate that GROK achieves superior clustering performance in unknown-KK scenarios by autonomously exploring the cluster structure.