AI Seminar Series 2023: Bram Grooten - Efficient Focus for Autonomous Agents

Описание: The AI Seminar is a weekly meeting at the University of Alberta where researchers interested in artificial intelligence (AI) can share their research. Presenters include both local speakers from the University of Alberta and visitors from other institutions. Topics can be related in any way to artificial intelligence, from foundational theoretical work to innovative applications of AI techniques to new fields and problems.

Abstract:
The world provides an abundance of information, but often the majority of possible inputs to an RL agent are irrelevant or even distracting to its current task. We cover two approaches aimed at enhancing performance in challenging environments.

First, the Automatic Noise Filtering (ANF) method is introduced, which learns to focus its efficient sparse connectivity on task-relevant features, outperforming dense algorithms with significantly fewer weights. Second, we highlight MaDi, a method that masks distracting visuals in image-based reinforcement learning, improving focus and generalization. We will conclude with possible extensions of these works, providing an opportunity for discussion and potential collaborations.


Presenter Bio:
Bram Grooten is a PhD student at the TU Eindhoven in the Netherlands, supervised by Decebal Mocanu and Mykola Pechenizkiy. Currently he is visiting the IRL Lab of Matthew Taylor at the University of Alberta until December. His research focuses on Sparse Training, Reinforcement Learning, Generalization, and Autonomous Driving.