RL researchers spar over REINFORCE: modern methods keep the score-function estimator, minus 1992 baggage
ChongZzZhang · x · 2026-10-20
A technical RL debate on X: ChongZzZhang pushes back on claims that REINFORCE-style methods are obsolete, noting that if 'reinforce' means only the 1992 original, then no — modern methods keep every other module of the policy-gradient framework intact. The attached paper excerpt contrasts zeroth-order and first-order policy gradient estimators: the zeroth-order batched gradient (ZOBG) is the classic REINFORCE/score-function estimator, with baseline terms to reduce variance, while the first-order batched gradient (FOGB) is the pathwise derivative / reparameterization trick, analytically obtainable in differentiable simulation settings.
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