Hierarchical deep reinforcement learning: Integrating temporal abstraction and intrinsic motivation

Tejas D. Kulkarni, Karthik R. Narasimhan, Ardavan Saeedi, Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

741 Scopus citations

Abstract

Learning goal-directed behavior in environments with sparse feedback is a major challenge for reinforcement learning algorithms. One of the key difficulties is insufficient exploration, resulting in an agent being unable to learn robust policies. Intrinsically motivated agents can explore new behavior for their own sake rather than to directly solve external goals. Such intrinsic behaviors could eventually help the agent solve tasks posed by the environment. We present hierarchical-DQN (h-DQN), a framework to integrate hierarchical action-value functions, operating at different temporal scales, with goal-driven intrinsically motivated deep reinforcement learning. A top-level q-value function learns a policy over intrinsic goals, while a lower-level function learns a policy over atomic actions to satisfy the given goals. h-DQN allows for flexible goal specifications, such as functions over entities and relations. This provides an efficient space for exploration in complicated environments. We demonstrate the strength of our approach on two problems with very sparse and delayed feedback: (1) a complex discrete stochastic decision process with stochastic transitions, and (2) the classic ATARI game - 'Montezuma's Revenge'.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)3682-3690
Number of pages9
JournalAdvances in Neural Information Processing Systems
StatePublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event30th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, NIPS 2016 - Barcelona, Spain
Duration: Dec 5 2016Dec 10 2016

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems
  • Signal Processing

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