Updates on Policy Gradients
This is the eighth part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 9 is here. Part 7 is here. Part 1 is here. I’ve been swamped with a bit of a travel binge and... Continue
A Model, You Know What I Mean?
This is the seventh part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 8 is here. Part 6 is here. Part 1 is here. The role of models in reinforcement learning remains hotly debated. Model-free... Continue
The Policy of Truth
This is the sixth part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 7 is here. Part 5 is here. Part 1 is here. Our first generic candidate for solving reinforcement learning is Policy Gradient.... Continue
A Game of Chance to You to Him Is One of Real Skill
This is the fifth part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 6 is here. Part 4 is here. Part 1 is here. The first two parts of this series highlighted two parallel aspirations... Continue
The Linear Quadratic Regulator
This is the fourth part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 5 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 1 is here. What would be a dead simple baseline for understanding optimal control... Continue
The Linearization Principle
This is the third part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 4 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 1 is here. I have an ethos for tackling problems in machine learning that... Continue
Total Control
This is the second part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 3 is here. Part 1 is here. In addition to the reasons I’ve discussed so far, I’ve been fascinated with the resurgence... Continue
Make It Happen
This is the first part of “An Outsider’s Tour of Reinforcement Learning.” Part 2 is here. If you read hacker news, you’d think that deep reinforcement learning can be used to solve any problem. Deep... Continue
Lessons from Optics, The Other Deep Learning
Would you say deep learning is mature enough to be taught in high schools? Here’s why I ask. Some time ago, I received an email from a product manager at a very large company. I... Continue
Directions of Ascent
Last November was a dramatic wake-up call to many of us in information technology, and I’ve spent a large part of the last year learning about how I and others in similar positions can help... Continue