#Meta #TransferLearning for factorizing representations and knowledge for #AI - Yoshua #Bengio
Abstract:
Whereas #MachineLearning theory has focused on generalization to examples from the same distribution as the training data, better understanding of the transfer scenarios where the observed distribution changes often in the lifetime of the learning agent is important, both for robust deployment and to achieve a more powerful form of generalization which humans seem able to enjoy and which seem necessary for learning agents. Whereas most machine learning algorithms and architectures can be traced back to assumptions about the training distributions, we also need to explore assumptions about how the observed distribution changes. We propose that sparsity of change in distribution, when knowledge is represented appropriately, is a good assumption for this purpose, and we claim that if that assumption is verified and knowledge represented appropriately, it leads to fast adaptation to changes in distribution, and thus that the speed of adaptation to changes in distribution can be used as a meta-objective which can drive the discovery of knowledge representation compatible with that assumption. We illustrate these ideas in causal discovery: is some variable a direct cause of another? and how to map raw data to a representation space where different dimensions correspond to causal variables for which a clear causal relationship exists? We propose a large research program in which this non-stationarity assumption and meta-transfer objective is combined with other closely related assumptions about the world embodied in a world model, such as the consciousness prior (the causal graph is captured by a sparse factor graph) and the assumption that the causal variables are often those agents can act upon (the independently controllable factors prior), both of which should be useful for agents which plan, imagine and try to find explanations for what they observe.
Lecture
🔭 @DeepGravity
Abstract:
Whereas #MachineLearning theory has focused on generalization to examples from the same distribution as the training data, better understanding of the transfer scenarios where the observed distribution changes often in the lifetime of the learning agent is important, both for robust deployment and to achieve a more powerful form of generalization which humans seem able to enjoy and which seem necessary for learning agents. Whereas most machine learning algorithms and architectures can be traced back to assumptions about the training distributions, we also need to explore assumptions about how the observed distribution changes. We propose that sparsity of change in distribution, when knowledge is represented appropriately, is a good assumption for this purpose, and we claim that if that assumption is verified and knowledge represented appropriately, it leads to fast adaptation to changes in distribution, and thus that the speed of adaptation to changes in distribution can be used as a meta-objective which can drive the discovery of knowledge representation compatible with that assumption. We illustrate these ideas in causal discovery: is some variable a direct cause of another? and how to map raw data to a representation space where different dimensions correspond to causal variables for which a clear causal relationship exists? We propose a large research program in which this non-stationarity assumption and meta-transfer objective is combined with other closely related assumptions about the world embodied in a world model, such as the consciousness prior (the causal graph is captured by a sparse factor graph) and the assumption that the causal variables are often those agents can act upon (the independently controllable factors prior), both of which should be useful for agents which plan, imagine and try to find explanations for what they observe.
Lecture
🔭 @DeepGravity
YouTube
Meta transfer learning for factorizing representations and knowledge for AI - Yoshua Bengio
Speaker: Yoshua Bengio Title: Meta transfer learning for factorizing representations and knowledge for AI Abstract: Whereas machine learning theory has focus...
Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta #ReinforcementLearning
Abstract: #Meta-reinforcement learning algorithms can enable robots to acquire new skills much more quickly, by leveraging prior experience to learn how to learn. However, much of the current research on meta-reinforcement learning focuses on task distributions that are very narrow. For example, a commonly used meta-reinforcement learning benchmark uses different running velocities for a simulated robot as different tasks. When policies are meta-trained on such narrow task distributions, they cannot possibly generalize to more quickly acquire entirely new tasks. Therefore, if the aim of these methods is to enable faster acquisition of entirely new behaviors, we must evaluate them on task distributions that are sufficiently broad to enable generalization to new behaviors. In this paper, we propose an open-source simulated benchmark for meta-reinforcement learning and multi-task learning consisting of 50 distinct robotic manipulation tasks. Our aim is to make it possible to develop algorithms that generalize to accelerate the acquisition of entirely new, held-out tasks. We evaluate 6 state-of-the-art metareinforcement learning and multi-task learning algorithms on these tasks. Surprisingly, while each task and its variations (e.g., with different object positions) can be learned with reasonable success, these algorithms struggle to learn with multiple tasks at the same time, even with as few as ten distinct training tasks. Our analysis and open-source environments pave the way for future research in multi-task learning and meta-learning that can enable meaningful generalization, thereby unlocking the full potential of these methods.
Paper
🔭 @DeepGravity
Abstract: #Meta-reinforcement learning algorithms can enable robots to acquire new skills much more quickly, by leveraging prior experience to learn how to learn. However, much of the current research on meta-reinforcement learning focuses on task distributions that are very narrow. For example, a commonly used meta-reinforcement learning benchmark uses different running velocities for a simulated robot as different tasks. When policies are meta-trained on such narrow task distributions, they cannot possibly generalize to more quickly acquire entirely new tasks. Therefore, if the aim of these methods is to enable faster acquisition of entirely new behaviors, we must evaluate them on task distributions that are sufficiently broad to enable generalization to new behaviors. In this paper, we propose an open-source simulated benchmark for meta-reinforcement learning and multi-task learning consisting of 50 distinct robotic manipulation tasks. Our aim is to make it possible to develop algorithms that generalize to accelerate the acquisition of entirely new, held-out tasks. We evaluate 6 state-of-the-art metareinforcement learning and multi-task learning algorithms on these tasks. Surprisingly, while each task and its variations (e.g., with different object positions) can be learned with reasonable success, these algorithms struggle to learn with multiple tasks at the same time, even with as few as ten distinct training tasks. Our analysis and open-source environments pave the way for future research in multi-task learning and meta-learning that can enable meaningful generalization, thereby unlocking the full potential of these methods.
Paper
🔭 @DeepGravity