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Related papers: A Definition of Continual Reinforcement Learning

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Exploration is one of the most important tasks in Reinforcement Learning, but it is not well-defined beyond finite problems in the Dynamic Programming paradigm (see Subsection 2.4). We provide a reinterpretation of exploration which can be…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-11-24 John C. Raisbeck , Matthew W. Allen , Hakho Lee

In this paper, we study the optimal stopping problem in the so-called exploratory framework, in which the agent takes actions randomly conditioning on current state and an entropy-regularized term is added to the reward functional. Such a…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-04 Yuchao Dong

Goals for reinforcement learning problems are typically defined through hand-specified rewards. To design such problems, developers of learning algorithms must inherently be aware of what the task goals are, yet we often require agents to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-29 Ashley D. Edwards , Laura Downs , James C. Davidson

Many healthcare decisions involve navigating through a multitude of treatment options in a sequential and iterative manner to find an optimal treatment pathway with the goal of an optimal patient outcome. Such optimization problems may be…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-03-10 Elsa Riachi , Muhammad Mamdani , Michael Fralick , Frank Rudzicz

We present a novel form of explanation for Reinforcement Learning, based around the notion of intended outcome. These explanations describe the outcome an agent is trying to achieve by its actions. We provide a simple proof that general…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-11-12 Herman Yau , Chris Russell , Simon Hadfield

As humans, our goals and our environment are persistently changing throughout our lifetime based on our experiences, actions, and internal and external drives. In contrast, typical reinforcement learning problem set-ups consider decision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-19 Annie Xie , James Harrison , Chelsea Finn

Deep reinforcement learning enables algorithms to learn complex behavior, deal with continuous action spaces and find good strategies in environments with high dimensional state spaces. With deep reinforcement learning being an active area…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-10-17 Winfried Lötzsch

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a popular machine learning paradigm where intelligent agents interact with the environment to fulfill a long-term goal. Driven by the resurgence of deep learning, Deep RL (DRL) has witnessed great success over…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-01 Yunpeng Qing , Shunyu Liu , Jie Song , Yang Zhou , Kaixuan Chen , Huiqiong Wang , Mingli Song

Finding meaningful and accurate dense rewards is a fundamental task in the field of reinforcement learning (RL) that enables agents to explore environments more efficiently. In traditional RL settings, agents learn optimal policies through…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-12-05 Shuyuan Zhang

Reinforcement learning agents have demonstrated remarkable achievements in simulated environments. Data efficiency poses an impediment to carrying this success over to real environments. The design of data-efficient agents calls for a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-09 Xiuyuan Lu , Benjamin Van Roy , Vikranth Dwaracherla , Morteza Ibrahimi , Ian Osband , Zheng Wen

Inverse Constrained Reinforcement Learning (ICRL) is the task of inferring the implicit constraints that expert agents adhere to, based on their demonstration data. As an emerging research topic, ICRL has received considerable attention in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-04 Guiliang Liu , Sheng Xu , Shicheng Liu , Ashish Gaurav , Sriram Ganapathi Subramanian , Pascal Poupart

The ability of a model to learn continually can be empirically assessed in different continual learning scenarios. Each scenario defines the constraints and the opportunities of the learning environment. Here, we challenge the current trend…

The central tenet of reinforcement learning (RL) is that agents seek to maximize the sum of cumulative rewards. In contrast, active inference, an emerging framework within cognitive and computational neuroscience, proposes that agents act…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-02 Alexander Tschantz , Beren Millidge , Anil K. Seth , Christopher L. Buckley

Reward functions are central in reinforcement learning (RL), guiding agents towards optimal decision-making. The complexity of RL tasks requires meticulously designed reward functions that effectively drive learning while avoiding…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-31 Rati Devidze

Reinforcement learning has the potential to automate the acquisition of behavior in complex settings, but in order for it to be successfully deployed, a number of practical challenges must be addressed. First, in real world settings, when…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-11-11 Kelvin Xu , Siddharth Verma , Chelsea Finn , Sergey Levine

Continual learning, or lifelong learning, is a formidable current challenge to machine learning. It requires the learner to solve a sequence of $k$ different learning tasks, one after the other, while retaining its aptitude for earlier…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-25 Xi Chen , Christos Papadimitriou , Binghui Peng

The "small agent, big world" frame offers a conceptual view that motivates the need for continual learning. The idea is that a small agent operating in a much bigger world cannot store all information that the world has to offer. To perform…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-07 Saurabh Kumar , Hong Jun Jeon , Alex Lewandowski , Benjamin Van Roy

A reinforcement learning agent tries to maximize its cumulative payoff by interacting in an unknown environment. It is important for the agent to explore suboptimal actions as well as to pick actions with highest known rewards. Yet, in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-01-23 Reazul Hasan Russel

We consider an extended notion of reinforcement learning in which the environment can simulate the agent and base its outputs on the agent's hypothetical behavior. Since good performance usually requires paying attention to whatever things…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2022-07-21 Samuel Allen Alexander , Michael Castaneda , Kevin Compher , Oscar Martinez

The pursuit of general intelligence has traditionally centered on external objectives: an agent's control over its environments or mastery of specific tasks. This external focus, however, can produce specialized agents that lack…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-31 Hanqi Zhou , Fryderyk Mantiuk , David G. Nagy , Charley M. Wu