Learning Equilibria from Data: Provably Efficient Multi-Agent Imitation Learning
Till Freihaut, Luca Viano, Volkan Cevher, Matthieu Geist, Giorgia Ramponi
Abstract
This paper provides the first expert sample complexity characterization for learning a Nash equilibrium from expert data in Markov Games. We show that a new quantity named the all policy deviation concentrability coefficient is unavoidable in the non-interactive imitation learning setting, and we provide an upper bound for behavioral cloning (BC) featuring such coefficient. BC exhibits substantial regret in games with high concentrability coefficient, leading us to utilize expert queries to develop and introduce two novel solution algorithms: MAIL-BRO and MURMAIL. The former employs a best response oracle and learns an ε-Nash equilibrium with O(ε -4 ) expert and oracle queries. The latter bypasses completely the best response oracle at the cost of a worse expert query complexity of order O(ε -8 ). Finally, we provide numerical evidence, confirming our theoretical findings.
1 For the sake of simplicity, the main text will focus on this case. The appendix outlines the extension to n player general-sum games.
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Cited by top-tier papers2
- Multi-agent imitation learning with function approximation: linear Markov games and beyondLuca Viano, Till Freihaut, Emanuele Nevali, Volkan Cevher et al.ICML 2026 · 1 citation
- Matching Multiple Experts: On the Exploitability of Multi-Agent Imitation LearningAntoine Bergerault, Volkan Cevher, Negar MehrICLR 2026
Builds on19
- Provable Self-Play Algorithms for Competitive Reinforcement LearningYu Bai, Chi JinICML 2020 · 169 citations
- Toward the Fundamental Limits of Imitation LearningNived Rajaraman, Lin F. Yang, Jiantao Jiao, Kannan RamchandranNeurIPS 2020 · 137 citations
- A Sharp Analysis of Model-based Reinforcement Learning with Self-PlayQinghua Liu, Tiancheng Yu, Yu Bai, Chi JinICML 2021 · 137 citations
- Is Behavior Cloning All You Need? Understanding Horizon in Imitation LearningDylan J. Foster, Adam Block, Dipendra MisraNeurIPS 2024 · 112 citations
- Of Moments and Matching: A Game-Theoretic Framework for Closing the Imitation GapGokul Swamy, Sanjiban Choudhury, J. Andrew Bagnell, Steven WuICML 2021 · 90 citations
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