APS1080H: Introduction to Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a systems-level Artificial Intelligence toolset; this course will provide the student with both a solid theoretical foundation and a strong practical understanding of the subject. RL enables autonomous agents to cope with poorly-characterized, novel environments by exploring the environment to gain knowledge about it, and to exploit this knowledge of the environment to act in a goal-directed manner. Although RL is positioned as one of three facets of Machine Learning, RL has far broader scope than the narrower tools of supervised and unsupervised learning. RL, being founded on agent design, has the goal of developing artificial intelligence schemes that can endow an agent with autonomy. This introduction, thus, will be presented within the motivating context of an overall AI system. There are three foundational RL tools we will cover (dynamic programming, Monte Carlo, Temporal-Difference Learning); we will also show how hybridizations of these foundational tools are employed to create production schemes. The student should leave the course with the ability to practically apply this AI toolset to novel problems.

0.50
St. George