Position: RL Researchers Need to Distinguish Between Solving Simulators and Using Simulators as a Proxy

arXiv:2606.28433v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: One goal in reinforcement learning (RL) research is to understand general-purpose sequential decision-making, using benchmark simulators as a proxy for learning in deployment settings. When running experiments, however, the goal of achieving high performance in the simulator can mutate into focusing exclusively on solving the simulator. To achieve high scores, researchers may adopt solutions exclusively meant for solving simulators, rather than lea...