February 25, 2015 | beSpacific

Human-level control through deep reinforcement learning

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

Human-level control through deep reinforcement learning. Nature 518, 529–533 (26 February 2015) doi:10.1038/nature14236. Received 10 July 2014, Accepted 16 January 2015, Published online 25 February 201.

“The theory of reinforcement learning provides a normative account, deeply rooted in psychological and neuroscientific perspectives on animal behaviour, of how agents may optimize their control of an environment. To use reinforcement learning successfully in situations approaching real-world complexity, however, agents are confronted with a difficult task: they must derive efficient representations of the environment from high-dimensional sensory inputs, and use these to generalize past experience to new situations. Remarkably, humans and other animals seem to solve this problem through a harmonious combination of reinforcement learning and hierarchical sensory processing systems, the former evidenced by a wealth of neural data revealing notable parallels between the phasic signals emitted by dopaminergic neurons and temporal difference reinforcement learning algorithms. While reinforcement learning agents have achieved some successes in a variety of domains, their applicability has previously been limited to domains in which useful features can be handcrafted, or to domains with fully observed, low-dimensional state spaces. Here we use recent advances in training deep neural networks to develop a novel artificial agent, termed a deep Q-network, that can learn successful policies directly from high-dimensional sensory inputs using end-to-end reinforcement learning. We tested this agent on the challenging domain of classic Atari 2600 games. We demonstrate that the deep Q-network agent, receiving only the pixels and the game score as inputs, was able to surpass the performance of all previous algorithms and achieve a level comparable to that of a professional human games tester across a set of 49 games, using the same algorithm, network architecture and hyperparameters. This work bridges the divide between high-dimensional sensory inputs and actions, resulting in the first artificial agent that is capable of learning to excel at a diverse array of challenging tasks.”

See also – The New Yorker – What Google DeepMind Means for A.I.

First in Freedom Index

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

John Locke Foundation Report – “Overall, North Carolina ranks 23rd in the nation and 5th among the 12 states of the Southeast. Florida holds the #1 slot on the FFI, followed by Arizona, Indiana, South Dakota, and Georgia. The least-free state is New York, which is joined in the bottom five by New Jersey, California,… Continue Reading

Kaiser – New Online Tool Gives Patients Insight Into The Cost Of Medical Care

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

Jay Hancock – Kaiser Health News: “Buying health care in America is like shopping blindfolded at Macy’s and getting the bill months after you leave the store, economist Uwe Reinhardt likes to say. A tool that went online Wednesday is supposed to give patients a small peek at the products and prices before they open… Continue Reading

Resistance Songs: Mobilizing the Law and Politics of Community

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

Alfieri, Anthony Victor, Resistance Songs: Mobilizing the Law and Politics of Community (February 24, 2015). University of Miami Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2015-09; Texas Law Review, Vol. 93, Forthcoming. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2569159 “In 1925, the City of Miami built a trash incinerator in the de jure segregated Afro-Caribbean-American community of Coconut… Continue Reading

Supporting Immigrant Integration in Europe – What Role for Origin Countries’ Subnational Authorities?

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

Migration Policy Institute: “The substantial role that subnational authorities in EU Member States play in the governance of migrant integration is widely recognized. Regional and local authorities in Member States have control over the implementation and delivery of a wide array of integration-related services. However, while much is known about integration at the subnational level… Continue Reading

ForeSee E-Government Satisfaction Index (Q4 2014)

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

GCN.com: “Thirty-one percent of federal government sites provide an excellent government experience for citizens, according to the ForeSee E-Government Satisfaction Index. ForeSee, a customer experience analytics provider, gathered 220,000 survey responses across 100 federal government websites, as well as mobile sites and applications. The index, which quarterly measures citizen satisfaction with e-government, is now in… Continue Reading

EPIC Challenges Samsung’s Surveillance of the Home, Files FTC Complaint

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

“EPIC has filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission about Samsung’s SmartTvs. “Samsung routinely intercepts and records the private communications of consumers in their homes,” EPIC wrote. EPIC detailed widespread consumer objections and charged that “privacy notices” do not diminish the harm to American consumers. In setting out the privacy violations, EPIC cited the… Continue Reading

Locate the closest Taxpayer Assistance Center

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

Free Tax Return Preparation for Qualifying Taxpayers: “The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program offers free tax help to people who generally make $53,000 or less, persons with disabilities, the elderly and limited English speaking taxpayers who need assistance in preparing their own tax returns. IRS-certified volunteers provide free basic income tax return preparation with… Continue Reading

Environmental Working Group Annual ‘Dirty Dozen’ List

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

“Nearly two-thirds of the 3,015 produce samples tested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2013 contained pesticide residues – a surprising finding in the face of soaring consumer demand for food without agricultural chemicals. EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce calculates that USDA tests found a total 165 different pesticides on thousands of… Continue Reading

New GAO Reports – African Growth and Opportunity Act, DOE Real Property, Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Request, Foster Care, IRS Investment

by Sabrina I. Pacifici on Feb 25, 2015

African Growth and Opportunity Act: Lessons Learned from Other Countries’ Trade Arrangements with Sub-Saharan Africa, GAO-15-393R: Published: Feb 25, 2015. Publicly Released: Feb 25, 2015. DOE Real Property: Better Data and a More Proactive Approach Needed to Facilitate Property Disposal, GAO-15-305: Published: Feb 25, 2015. Publicly Released: Feb 25, 2015. Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Request:… Continue Reading

February 2015
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jan				Mar »
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28

Daily Archives: February 25, 2015