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Dyna is an AI architecture that integrates learning, planning, and reactive execution. Learning methods are used in Dyna both for compiling planning results and for updating a model of the effects of the agent's actions on the world. Planning is incremental and can use the probabilistic and ofttimes incorrect world models generated by learning processes. Execution is fully reactive in the sense that no planning intervenes between perception and action. Dyna relies on machine learning methods for learning from examples -- these are among the basic building blocks making up the architecture -- yet is not tied to any particular method. This paper briefly introduces Dyna and discusses its strengths and weaknesses with respect to other architectures.

In the Markov decision process (MDP) formalization of reinforcement learning, a single adaptive agent interacts with an environment defined by a probabilistic transition function. In this solipsistic view, secondary agents can only be part of the environment and are therefore fixed in their behavior. The framework of Markov games allows us to widen this view to include multiple adaptive agents with interacting or competing goals. This paper considers a step in this direction in which exactly two agents with diametrically opposed goals share an environment. It describes a Q-learning-like algorithm for finding optimal policies and demonstrates its application to a simple two-player game in which the optimal policy is probabilistic.

We present a new algorithm, Prioritized Sweeping, for e cient prediction and control of stochas-tic Markov systems. Incremental learning methods such asTemporal Di erencing and Q-learning have fast real time performance. Classical methods are slower, but more accurate, because they make full use of the observations. Prioritized Sweeping aims for the best of both worlds. It uses all previous experiences both to prioritize important dynamic programming sweeps and to guide the exploration of state-space. We compare Prioritized Sweeping with other reinforcement learning schemes for a number of di erent stochastic optimal control prob-lems. It successfully solves large state-space real time problems with which other methods have di culty. 1 1

Abstract. This article presents a general class of associative reinforcement learning algorithms for connectionist networks containing stochastic units. These algorithms, called REINFORCE algorithms, are shown to make weight adjustments in a direction that lies along the gradient of expected reinforcement in both immediate-reinforcement tasks and certain limited forms of delayed-reinforcement tasks, and they do this without explicitly computing gradient estimates or even storing information from which such estimates could be computed. Specific examples of such algorithms are presented, some of which bear a close relationship to certain existing algorithms while others are novel but potentially interesting in their own right. Also given are results that show how such algorithms can be naturally integrated with backpropagation. We close with a brief discussion of a number of additional issues surrounding the use of such algorithms, including what is known about their limiting behaviors as well as further considerations that might be used to help develop similar but potentially more powerful reinforcement learning algorithms.

Abstract. To date, reinforcement learning has mostly been studied solving simple learning tasks. Reinforcement learning methods that have been studied so far typically converge slowly. The purpose of this work is thus two-fold: 1) to investigate the utility of reinforcement learning in solving much more complicated learning tasks than previously studied, and 2) to investigate methods that will speed up reinforcement learning. This paper compares eight reinforcement learning frameworks: adaptive heuristic critic (AHC) learning due to Sutton, Q-learning due to Watkins, and three extensions to both basic methods for speeding up learning. The three extensions are experience replay, learning action models for planning, and teaching. The frameworks were investigated using connectionism as an approach to generalization. To evaluate the performance of different frame-works, a dynamic environment was used as a testbed. The enviromaaent is moderately complex and nondetermin-istic. This paper describes these frameworks and algorithms in detail and presents empirical evaluation of the frameworks.

There has been increased research interest in systems composed of multiple autonomous mobile robots exhibiting collective behavior. Groups of mobile robots are constructed, with an aim to studying such issues as group architecture, resource conflict, origin of cooperation, learning, and geometric problems. As yet, few applications of collective robotics have been reported, and supporting theory is still in its formative stages. In this paper, we give a critical survey of existing works and discuss open problems in this field, emphasizing the various theoretical issues that arise in the study of cooperative robotics. We describe the intellectual heritages that have guided early research, as well as possible additions to the set of existing motivations. 1

To appear in: G. Tesauro, D. S. Touretzky and T. K. Leen, eds., Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 7, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1995. A straightforward approach to the curse of dimensionality in reinforcement learning and dynamic programming is to replace the lookup table with a generalizing function approximator such as a neural net. Although this has been successful in the domain of backgammon, there is no guarantee of convergence. In this paper, we show that the combination of dynamic programming and function approximation is not robust, and in even very benign cases, may produce an entirely wrong policy. We then introduce Grow-Support, a new algorithm which is safe from divergence yet can still reap the benefits of successful generalization. 1 INTRODUCTION Reinforcement learning---the problem of getting an agent to learn to act from sparse, delayed rewards---has been advanced by techniques based on dynamic programming (DP). These algorithms compute a value function ...

Discovering the structure inherent in a set of patterns is a fundamental aim of statistical inference or learning. One fruitful approach is to build a parameterized stochastic generative model, independent draws from which are likely to produce the patterns. For all but the simplest generative models, each pattern can be generated in exponentially many ways. It is thus intractable to adjust the parameters to maximize the probability of the observed patterns. We describe a way of finessing this combinatorial explosion by maximizing an easily computed lower bound on the probability of the observations. Our method can be viewed as a form of hierarchical self-supervised learning that may relate to the function of bottom-up and top-down cortical processing pathways.

Sequential decision making is a fundamental task faced by any intelligent agent in an extended interaction with its environment; it is the act of answering the question "What should I do now?" In this thesis, I show how to answer this question when "now" is one of a finite set of states, "do" is one of a finite set of actions, "should" is maximize a long-run measure of reward, and "I" is an automated planning or learning system (agent). In particular,