Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for selecting an action to be performed by a reinforcement learning agent. The method includes obtaining an observation characterizing a current state of an environment. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer of a neural network, a respective noise value is determined. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer, a noisy current value for the layer parameter is determined from a current value of the layer parameter, a current value of a corresponding noise parameter, and the noise value. A network input including the observation is processed using the neural network in accordance with the noisy current values to generate a network output for the network input. An action is selected from a set of possible actions to be performed by the agent in response to the observation using the network output.

Abstract: An off-policy reinforcement learning actor-critic neural network system configured to select actions from a continuous action space to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment to perform a task. An observation defines environment state data and reward data. The system has an actor neural network which learns a policy function mapping the state data to action data. A critic neural network learns an action-value (Q) function. A replay buffer stores tuples of the state data, the action data, the reward data and new state data. The replay buffer also includes demonstration transition data comprising a set of the tuples from a demonstration of the task within the environment. The neural network system is configured to train the actor neural network and the critic neural network off-policy using stored tuples from the replay buffer comprising tuples both from operation of the system and from the demonstration transition data.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for training an action selection neural network that is used to select actions to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment. In one aspect, the method comprises: receiving an observation characterizing a current state of the environment; processing the observation and an exploration importance factor using the action selection neural network to generate an action selection output; selecting an action to be performed by the agent using the action selection output; determining an exploration reward; determining an overall reward based on: (i) the exploration importance factor, and (ii) the exploration reward; and training the action selection neural network using a reinforcement learning technique based on the overall reward.

Abstract: An off-policy reinforcement learning actor-critic neural network system configured to select actions from a continuous action space to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment to perform a task. An observation defines environment state data and reward data. The system has an actor neural network which learns a policy function mapping the state data to action data. A critic neural network learns an action-value (Q) function. A replay buffer stores tuples of the state data, the action data, the reward data and new state data. The replay buffer also includes demonstration transition data comprising a set of the tuples from a demonstration of the task within the environment. The neural network system is configured to train the actor neural network and the critic neural network off-policy using stored tuples from the replay buffer comprising tuples both from operation of the system and from the demonstration transition data.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for training an action selection neural network that is used to select actions to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment. In one aspect, the method comprises: receiving an observation characterizing a current state of the environment; processing the observation and an exploration importance factor using the action selection neural network to generate an action selection output; selecting an action to be performed by the agent using the action selection output; determining an exploration reward; determining an overall reward based on: (i) the exploration importance factor, and (ii) the exploration reward; and training the action selection neural network using a reinforcement learning technique based on the overall reward.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for training an environment representation neural network of a reinforcement learning system controls an agent to perform a given task. In one aspect, the method includes: receiving a current observation input and a future observation input; generating, from the future observation input, a future latent representation of the future state of the environment; processing, using the environment representation neural network, to generate a current internal representation of the current state of the environment; generating, from the current internal representation, a predicted future latent representation; evaluating an objective function measuring a difference between the future latent representation and the predicted future latent representation; and determining, based on a determined gradient of the objective function, an update to the current values of the environment representation parameters.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for reinforcement learning with adaptive return computation schemes. In one aspect, a method includes: maintaining data specifying a policy for selecting between multiple different return computation schemes, each return computation scheme assigning a different importance to exploring the environment while performing an episode of a task; selecting, using the policy, a return computation scheme from the multiple different return computation schemes; controlling an agent to perform the episode of the task to maximize a return computed according to the selected return computation scheme; identifying rewards that were generated as a result of the agent performing the episode of the task; and updating, using the identified rewards, the policy for selecting between multiple different return computation schemes.

Abstract: An off-policy reinforcement learning actor-critic neural network system configured to select actions from a continuous action space to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment to perform a task. An observation defines environment state data and reward data. The system has an actor neural network which learns a policy function mapping the state data to action data. A critic neural network learns an action-value (Q) function. A replay buffer stores tuples of the state data, the action data, the reward data and new state data. The replay buffer also includes demonstration transition data comprising a set of the tuples from a demonstration of the task within the environment. The neural network system is configured to train the actor neural network and the critic neural network off-policy using stored tuples from the replay buffer comprising tuples both from operation of the system and from the demonstration transition data.

Abstract: A system that is configured to receive a sequence of task inputs and to perform a machine learning task is described. The system includes a reinforcement learning (RL) neural network and a task neural network. The RL neural network is configured to: generate, for each task input of the sequence of task inputs, a respective decision that determines whether to encode the task input or to skip the task input, and provide the respective decision of each task input to the task neural network.

Abstract: An off-policy reinforcement learning actor-critic neural network system configured to select actions from a continuous action space to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment to perform a task. An observation defines environment state data and reward data. The system has an actor neural network which learns a policy function mapping the state data to action data. A critic neural network learns an action-value (Q) function. A replay buffer stores tuples of the state data, the action data, the reward data and new state data. The replay buffer also includes demonstration transition data comprising a set of the tuples from a demonstration of the task within the environment. The neural network system is configured to train the actor neural network and the critic neural network off-policy using stored tuples from the replay buffer comprising tuples both from operation of the system and from the demonstration transition data.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for controlling an agent. One of the methods includes, while training a neural network used to control the agent, generating a reward value for the training as a measure of the divergence between the likelihood of the further observation under first and second statistical models of the environment, the first statistical model and second model being based on respective first and second histories of past observations and actions, the most recent observation in the first history being more recent than the most recent observation in the second history.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of training a neural network. The method comprises processing a first transformed view of a training data item, e.g. an image, with a target neural network to generate a target output, processing a second transformed view of the training data item, e.g. image, with an online neural network to generate a prediction of the target output, updating parameters of the online neural network to minimize an error between the prediction of the target output and the target output, and updating parameters of the target neural network based on the parameters of the online neural network. The method can effectively train an encoder neural network without using labelled training data items, and without using a contrastive loss, i.e. without needing “negative examples” which comprise transformed views of different data items.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for selecting an action to be performed by a reinforcement learning agent. The method includes obtaining an observation characterizing a current state of an environment. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer of a neural network, a respective noise value is determined. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer, a noisy current value for the layer parameter is determined from a current value of the layer parameter, a current value of a corresponding noise parameter, and the noise value. A network input including the observation is processed using the neural network in accordance with the noisy current values to generate a network output for the network input. An action is selected from a set of possible actions to be performed by the agent in response to the observation using the network output.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for training an action selection neural network that is used to select actions to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment. In one aspect, the method comprises: receiving an observation characterizing a current state of the environment; processing the observation and an exploration importance factor using the action selection neural network to generate an action selection output; selecting an action to be performed by the agent using the action selection output; determining an exploration reward; determining an overall reward based on: (i) the exploration importance factor, and (ii) the exploration reward; and training the action selection neural network using a reinforcement learning technique based on the overall reward.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for selecting an action to be performed by a reinforcement learning agent. The method includes obtaining an observation characterizing a current state of an environment. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer of a neural network, a respective noise value is determined. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer, a noisy current value for the layer parameter is determined from a current value of the layer parameter, a current value of a corresponding noise parameter, and the noise value. A network input including the observation is processed using the neural network in accordance with the noisy current values to generate a network output for the network input. An action is selected from a set of possible actions to be performed by the agent in response to the observation using the network output.

Abstract: An off-policy reinforcement learning actor-critic neural network system configured to select actions from a continuous action space to be performed by an agent interacting with an environment to perform a task. An observation defines environment state data and reward data. The system has an actor neural network which learns a policy function mapping the state data to action data. A critic neural network learns an action-value (Q) function. A replay buffer stores tuples of the state data, the action data, the reward data and new state data. The replay buffer also includes demonstration transition data comprising a set of the tuples from a demonstration of the task within the environment. The neural network system is configured to train the actor neural network and the critic neural network off-policy using stored tuples from the replay buffer comprising tuples both from operation of the system and from the demonstration transition data.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for selecting an action to be performed by a reinforcement learning agent. The method includes obtaining an observation characterizing a current state of an environment. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer of a neural network, a respective noise value is determined. For each layer parameter of each noisy layer, a noisy current value for the layer parameter is determined from a current value of the layer parameter, a current value of a corresponding noise parameter, and the noise value. A network input including the observation is processed using the neural network in accordance with the noisy current values to generate a network output for the network input. An action is selected from a set of possible actions to be performed by the agent in response to the observation using the network output.