  Imitation learning algorithms learn viable policies by imitating an expert's
behavior when reward signals are not available. Generative Adversarial
Imitation Learning (GAIL) is a state-of-the-art algorithm for learning policies
when the expert's behavior is available as a fixed set of trajectories. We
evaluate in terms of the expert's cost function and observe that the
distribution of trajectory-costs is often more heavy-tailed for GAIL-agents
than the expert at a number of benchmark continuous-control tasks. Thus,
high-cost trajectories, corresponding to tail-end events of catastrophic
failure, are more likely to be encountered by the GAIL-agents than the expert.
This makes the reliability of GAIL-agents questionable when it comes to
deployment in risk-sensitive applications like robotic surgery and autonomous
driving. In this work, we aim to minimize the occurrence of tail-end events by
minimizing tail risk within the GAIL framework. We quantify tail risk by the
Conditional-Value-at-Risk (CVaR) of trajectories and develop the Risk-Averse
Imitation Learning (RAIL) algorithm. We observe that the policies learned with
RAIL show lower tail-end risk than those of vanilla GAIL. Thus the proposed
RAIL algorithm appears as a potent alternative to GAIL for improved reliability
in risk-sensitive applications.
