Reinforcement learning systems can make decisions in one of two ways. In the model-based approach, a system uses a predictive model of the world to ask questions of the form “what will happen if I do x?” to choose the best x1. In the alternative model-free approach, the modeling step is bypassed altogether in favor of learning a control policy directly. Although in practice the line between these two techniques can become blurred, as a coarse guide it is useful for dividing up the space of algorithmic possibilities.


Predictive models can be used to ask “what if?” questions to guide future decisions.

The natural question to ask after making this distinction is whether to use such a predictive model. The field has grappled with this question for quite a while, and is unlikely to reach a consensus any time soon. However, we have learned enough about designing model-based algorithms that it is possible to draw some general conclusions about best practices and common pitfalls. In this post, we will survey various realizations of model-based reinforcement learning methods. We will then describe some of the tradeoffs that come into play when using a learned predictive model for training a policy and how these considerations motivate a simple but effective strategy for model-based reinforcement learning. The latter half of this post is based on our recent paper on model-based policy optimization, for which code is available here.