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A Bellman Optimality Equation for Plasticity

arxiv.org/abs/2609.10776

Updated 14 min ago · first seen 11 Sept 2026

paper_01M294FNRTYB10NXD329EGG6PJ

Published
11 Sept 2026
T1 · 14 min ago
arXiv
2609.10776
T1 · 14 min ago
Category
cs.LG
T1 · 14 min ago

Abstract

In continual reinforcement learning, carefully managing the stability-plasticity tradeoff remains a core challenge. Recent work by Abel et al. (2025) formalized this dilemma by defining plasticity as the generalized directed information from an agent's observations to its actions, and empowerment as the generalized directed information from its actions to its observations. This formulation successfully reframes the traditional stability-plasticity tradeoff as an empowerment-plasticity tradeoff. However, while extensive literature exists on optimizing for empowerment, there is currently no research addressing the optimization of plasticity under this new definition. This paper presents preliminary work toward optimizing plasticity within Markov decision processes. We show that there exists a Bellman optimality equation for optimizing plasticity similar to previous work for empowerment.

Authors 2

Jeremy Lucas, Doina Precup

Specification

Official page

Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 14 min agohigh

Arxiv announce type
new

Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 14 min agohigh

arXiv id
2609.10776

Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 14 min agohigh

Categories
cs.LG

Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 14 min agohigh

PDF

Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 14 min agohigh

Primary category
cs.LG

Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 14 min agohigh

Published
11 Sept 2026

Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 14 min agohigh

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Provenance

Attributed facts

9

Source tiers

T19

Freshest observation

14 min ago

Conflicts

None