LM101-063: How to Transform a Supervised Learning Machine into a Policy Gradient Reinforcement Learning Machine

Learning Machines 101

This 63rd episode of Learning Machines 101 discusses how to build reinforcement learning machines which become smarter with experience but do not use this acquired knowledge to modify their actions and behaviors. This episode explains how to build reinforcement learning machines whose behavior evolves as the learning machines become increasingly smarter. The essential idea for the construction of such reinforcement learning machines is based upon first developing a supervised learning machine. The supervised learning machine then “guesses” the desired response and updates its parameters using its guess for the desired response! Although the reasoning seems circular, this approach in fact is a variation of the important widely used machine learning method of Expectation-Maximization. Some applications to learning to play video games, control walking robots, and developing optimal trading strategies for the stock market are briefly mentioned as well. Check us out at: www.learningmachines101.com