Understanding the Training and Generalization of Pretrained Transformer for Sequential Decision Making

TL;DR

This paper studies pre-trained transformers for certain sequential decision-making problems, revealing their training as performative prediction, proposing improvements for out-of-distribution issues, and demonstrating advantages over traditional algorithms in specific scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a new training approach incorporating transformer-generated actions, providing theoretical and numerical insights into their performance and exploration behavior.

Findings

Transformer training can be viewed as performative prediction.

Including generated actions improves training robustness.

Pre-trained transformers outperform structured algorithms in short horizons.

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the supervised pre-trained transformer for a class of sequential decision-making problems. The class of considered problems is a subset of the general formulation of reinforcement learning in that there is no transition probability matrix; though seemingly restrictive, the subset class of problems covers bandits, dynamic pricing, and newsvendor problems as special cases. Such a structure enables the use of optimal actions/decisions in the pre-training phase, and the usage also provides new insights for the training and generalization of the pre-trained transformer. We first note the training of the transformer model can be viewed as a performative prediction problem, and the existing methods and theories largely ignore or cannot resolve an out-of-distribution issue. We propose a natural solution that includes the transformer-generated action sequences in the training procedure, and it enjoys better properties both numerically and theoretically. The availability of the optimal actions in the considered tasks also allows us to analyze the properties of the pre-trained transformer as an algorithm and explains why it may lack exploration and how this can be automatically resolved. Numerically, we categorize the advantages of pre-trained transformers over the structured algorithms such as UCB and Thompson sampling into three cases: (i) it better utilizes the prior knowledge in the pre-training data; (ii) it can elegantly handle the misspecification issue suffered by the structured algorithms; (iii) for short time horizon such as $T\le50$, it behaves more greedy and enjoys much better regret than the structured algorithms designed for asymptotic optimality.