25,927 research outputs found
SDRL: Interpretable and Data-efficient Deep Reinforcement Learning Leveraging Symbolic Planning
Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has gained great success by learning
directly from high-dimensional sensory inputs, yet is notorious for the lack of
interpretability. Interpretability of the subtasks is critical in hierarchical
decision-making as it increases the transparency of black-box-style DRL
approach and helps the RL practitioners to understand the high-level behavior
of the system better. In this paper, we introduce symbolic planning into DRL
and propose a framework of Symbolic Deep Reinforcement Learning (SDRL) that can
handle both high-dimensional sensory inputs and symbolic planning. The
task-level interpretability is enabled by relating symbolic actions to
options.This framework features a planner -- controller -- meta-controller
architecture, which takes charge of subtask scheduling, data-driven subtask
learning, and subtask evaluation, respectively. The three components
cross-fertilize each other and eventually converge to an optimal symbolic plan
along with the learned subtasks, bringing together the advantages of long-term
planning capability with symbolic knowledge and end-to-end reinforcement
learning directly from a high-dimensional sensory input. Experimental results
validate the interpretability of subtasks, along with improved data efficiency
compared with state-of-the-art approaches
Can Rats Reason?
Since at least the mid-1980s claims have been made for rationality in rats. For example,
that rats are capable of inferential reasoning (Blaisdell, Sawa, Leising, & Waldmann,
2006; Bunsey & Eichenbaum, 1996), or that they can make adaptive decisions about
future behavior (Foote & Crystal, 2007), or that they are capable of knowledge in
propositional-like form (Dickinson, 1985). The stakes are rather high, because these
capacities imply concept possession and on some views (e.g., Rödl, 2007; Savanah,
2012) rationality indicates self-consciousness. I evaluate the case for rat rationality by
analyzing 5 key research paradigms: spatial navigation, metacognition, transitive
inference, causal reasoning, and goal orientation. I conclude that the observed behaviors
need not imply rationality by the subjects. Rather, the behavior can be accounted
for by noncognitive processes such as hard-wired species typical predispositions or
associative learning or (nonconceptual) affordance detection. These mechanisms do not
necessarily require or implicate the capacity for rationality. As such there is as yet
insufficient evidence that rats can reason. I end by proposing the ‘Staircase Test,’ an
experiment designed to provide convincing evidence of rationality in rats
Building machines that learn and think about morality
Lake et al. propose three criteria which, they argue, will bring artificial intelligence (AI) systems closer to human cognitive abilities. In this paper, we explore the application of these criteria to a particular domain of human cognition: our capacity for moral reasoning. In doing so, we explore a set of considerations relevant to the development of AI moral decision-making. Our main focus is on the relation between dual-process accounts of moral reasoning and model-free/model-based forms of machine learning. We also discuss how work in embodied and situated cognition could provide a valu- able perspective on future research
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