16,214 research outputs found
Expert iteration
In this thesis, we study how reinforcement learning algorithms can tackle classical board games without recourse to human knowledge. Specifically, we develop a framework and algorithms which learn to play the board game Hex starting from random play. We first describe Expert Iteration (ExIt), a novel reinforcement learning framework which extends Modified Policy Iteration. ExIt explicitly decomposes the reinforcement learning problem into two parts: planning and generalisation. A planning algorithm explores possible move sequences starting from a particular position to find good strategies from that position, while a parametric function approximator is trained to predict those plans, generalising to states not yet seen. Subsequently, planning is improved by using the approximated policy to guide search, increasing the strength of new plans. This decomposition allows ExIt to combine the benefits of both planning methods and function approximation methods. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the ExIt paradigm by implementing ExIt with two different planning algorithms. First, we develop a version based on Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), a search algorithm which has been successful both in specific games, such as Go, Hex and Havannah, and in general game playing competitions. We then develop a new planning algorithm, Policy Gradient Search (PGS), which uses a model-free reinforcement learning algorithm for online planning. Unlike MCTS, PGS does not require an explicit search tree. Instead PGS uses function approximation within a single search, allowing it to be applied to problems with larger branching factors. Both MCTS-ExIt and PGS-ExIt defeated MoHex 2.0 - the most recent Hex Olympiad winner to be open sourced - in 9 × 9 Hex. More importantly, whereas MoHex makes use of many Hex-specific improvements and knowledge, all our programs were trained tabula rasa using general reinforcement learning methods. This bodes well for ExIt’s applicability to both other games and real world decision making problems
Thinking Fast and Slow with Deep Learning and Tree Search
Sequential decision making problems, such as structured prediction, robotic
control, and game playing, require a combination of planning policies and
generalisation of those plans. In this paper, we present Expert Iteration
(ExIt), a novel reinforcement learning algorithm which decomposes the problem
into separate planning and generalisation tasks. Planning new policies is
performed by tree search, while a deep neural network generalises those plans.
Subsequently, tree search is improved by using the neural network policy to
guide search, increasing the strength of new plans. In contrast, standard deep
Reinforcement Learning algorithms rely on a neural network not only to
generalise plans, but to discover them too. We show that ExIt outperforms
REINFORCE for training a neural network to play the board game Hex, and our
final tree search agent, trained tabula rasa, defeats MoHex 1.0, the most
recent Olympiad Champion player to be publicly released.Comment: v1 to v2: - Add a value function in MCTS - Some MCTS hyper-parameters
changed - Repetition of experiments: improved accuracy and errors shown.
(note the reduction in effect size for the tpt/cat experiment) - Results from
a longer training run, including changes in expert strength in training -
Comparison to MoHex. v3: clarify independence of ExIt and AG0. v4: see
appendix
Biasing MCTS with Features for General Games
This paper proposes using a linear function approximator, rather than a deep
neural network (DNN), to bias a Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) player for
general games. This is unlikely to match the potential raw playing strength of
DNNs, but has advantages in terms of generality, interpretability and resources
(time and hardware) required for training. Features describing local patterns
are used as inputs. The features are formulated in such a way that they are
easily interpretable and applicable to a wide range of general games, and might
encode simple local strategies. We gradually create new features during the
same self-play training process used to learn feature weights. We evaluate the
playing strength of an MCTS player biased by learnt features against a standard
upper confidence bounds for trees (UCT) player in multiple different board
games, and demonstrate significantly improved playing strength in the majority
of them after a small number of self-play training games.Comment: Accepted at IEEE CEC 2019, Special Session on Games. Copyright of
final version held by IEE
Assessing the Potential of Classical Q-learning in General Game Playing
After the recent groundbreaking results of AlphaGo and AlphaZero, we have
seen strong interests in deep reinforcement learning and artificial general
intelligence (AGI) in game playing. However, deep learning is
resource-intensive and the theory is not yet well developed. For small games,
simple classical table-based Q-learning might still be the algorithm of choice.
General Game Playing (GGP) provides a good testbed for reinforcement learning
to research AGI. Q-learning is one of the canonical reinforcement learning
methods, and has been used by (Banerjee Stone, IJCAI 2007) in GGP. In this
paper we implement Q-learning in GGP for three small-board games (Tic-Tac-Toe,
Connect Four, Hex)\footnote{source code: https://github.com/wh1992v/ggp-rl}, to
allow comparison to Banerjee et al.. We find that Q-learning converges to a
high win rate in GGP. For the -greedy strategy, we propose a first
enhancement, the dynamic algorithm. In addition, inspired by (Gelly
Silver, ICML 2007) we combine online search (Monte Carlo Search) to
enhance offline learning, and propose QM-learning for GGP. Both enhancements
improve the performance of classical Q-learning. In this work, GGP allows us to
show, if augmented by appropriate enhancements, that classical table-based
Q-learning can perform well in small games.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1802.0594
Learning Policies from Self-Play with Policy Gradients and MCTS Value Estimates
In recent years, state-of-the-art game-playing agents often involve policies
that are trained in self-playing processes where Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS)
algorithms and trained policies iteratively improve each other. The strongest
results have been obtained when policies are trained to mimic the search
behaviour of MCTS by minimising a cross-entropy loss. Because MCTS, by design,
includes an element of exploration, policies trained in this manner are also
likely to exhibit a similar extent of exploration. In this paper, we are
interested in learning policies for a project with future goals including the
extraction of interpretable strategies, rather than state-of-the-art
game-playing performance. For these goals, we argue that such an extent of
exploration is undesirable, and we propose a novel objective function for
training policies that are not exploratory. We derive a policy gradient
expression for maximising this objective function, which can be estimated using
MCTS value estimates, rather than MCTS visit counts. We empirically evaluate
various properties of resulting policies, in a variety of board games.Comment: Accepted at the IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) 201
Low-Cost Experiments with Everyday Objects for Homework Assignments
We describe four classical undergraduate physics experiments that were done
with everyday objects and low-cost sensors: mechanical oscillations,
transmittance of light through a slab of matter, beam deformation under load,
and thermal relaxation due to heat loss. We used these experiments to train
students for experimental homework projects but they could be used and expanded
in a variety of contexts: lecture demonstrations, low cost students' labs,
science projects, distance learning courses...Comment: details on students where added : a section dedicated to the student
difficulties and general feedback on this teaching unit. Minor typos were
fixed. Published in Physics Educatio
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