6,890 research outputs found
The Hanabi Challenge: A New Frontier for AI Research
From the early days of computing, games have been important testbeds for
studying how well machines can do sophisticated decision making. In recent
years, machine learning has made dramatic advances with artificial agents
reaching superhuman performance in challenge domains like Go, Atari, and some
variants of poker. As with their predecessors of chess, checkers, and
backgammon, these game domains have driven research by providing sophisticated
yet well-defined challenges for artificial intelligence practitioners. We
continue this tradition by proposing the game of Hanabi as a new challenge
domain with novel problems that arise from its combination of purely
cooperative gameplay with two to five players and imperfect information. In
particular, we argue that Hanabi elevates reasoning about the beliefs and
intentions of other agents to the foreground. We believe developing novel
techniques for such theory of mind reasoning will not only be crucial for
success in Hanabi, but also in broader collaborative efforts, especially those
with human partners. To facilitate future research, we introduce the
open-source Hanabi Learning Environment, propose an experimental framework for
the research community to evaluate algorithmic advances, and assess the
performance of current state-of-the-art techniques.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures, In Press (Artificial Intelligence
A Unified Coded Deep Neural Network Training Strategy Based on Generalized PolyDot Codes for Matrix Multiplication
This paper has two contributions. First, we propose a novel coded matrix
multiplication technique called Generalized PolyDot codes that advances on
existing methods for coded matrix multiplication under storage and
communication constraints. This technique uses "garbage alignment," i.e.,
aligning computations in coded computing that are not a part of the desired
output. Generalized PolyDot codes bridge between Polynomial codes and MatDot
codes, trading off between recovery threshold and communication costs. Second,
we demonstrate that Generalized PolyDot can be used for training large Deep
Neural Networks (DNNs) on unreliable nodes prone to soft-errors. This requires
us to address three additional challenges: (i) prohibitively large overhead of
coding the weight matrices in each layer of the DNN at each iteration; (ii)
nonlinear operations during training, which are incompatible with linear
coding; and (iii) not assuming presence of an error-free master node, requiring
us to architect a fully decentralized implementation without any "single point
of failure." We allow all primary DNN training steps, namely, matrix
multiplication, nonlinear activation, Hadamard product, and update steps as
well as the encoding/decoding to be error-prone. We consider the case of
mini-batch size , as well as , leveraging coded matrix-vector
products, and matrix-matrix products respectively. The problem of DNN training
under soft-errors also motivates an interesting, probabilistic error model
under which a real number MDS code is shown to correct errors
with probability as compared to for the
more conventional, adversarial error model. We also demonstrate that our
proposed strategy can provide unbounded gains in error tolerance over a
competing replication strategy and a preliminary MDS-code-based strategy for
both these error models.Comment: Presented in part at the IEEE International Symposium on Information
Theory 2018 (Submission Date: Jan 12 2018); Currently under review at the
IEEE Transactions on Information Theor
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End-to-end deep reinforcement learning in computer systems
Abstract
The growing complexity of data processing systems has long led systems designers to imagine systems (e.g. databases, schedulers) which can self-configure and adapt based on environmental cues. In this context, reinforcement learning (RL) methods have since their inception appealed to systems developers. They promise to acquire complex decision policies from raw feedback signals. Despite their conceptual popularity, RL methods are scarcely found in real-world data processing systems. Recently, RL has seen explosive growth in interest due to high profile successes when utilising large neural networks (deep reinforcement learning). Newly emerging machine learning frameworks and powerful hardware accelerators have given rise to a plethora of new potential applications.
In this dissertation, I first argue that in order to design and execute deep RL algorithms efficiently, novel software abstractions are required which can accommodate the distinct computational patterns of communication-intensive and fast-evolving algorithms. I propose an architecture which decouples logical algorithm construction from local and distributed execution semantics. I further present RLgraph, my proof-of-concept implementation of this architecture. In RLgraph, algorithm developers can explore novel designs by constructing a high-level data flow graph through combination of logical components. This dataflow graph is independent of specific backend frameworks or notions of execution, and is only later mapped to execution semantics via a staged build process. RLgraph enables high-performing algorithm implementations while maintaining flexibility for rapid prototyping.
Second, I investigate reasons for the scarcity of RL applications in systems themselves. I argue that progress in applied RL is hindered by a lack of tools for task model design which bridge the gap between systems and algorithms, and also by missing shared standards for evaluation of model capabilities. I introduce Wield, a first-of-its-kind tool for incremental model design in applied RL. Wield provides a small set of primitives which decouple systems interfaces and deployment-specific configuration from representation. Core to Wield is a novel instructive experiment protocol called progressive randomisation which helps practitioners to incrementally evaluate different dimensions of non-determinism. I demonstrate how Wield and progressive randomisation can be used to reproduce and assess prior work, and to guide implementation of novel RL applications
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