Continual Reinforcement Learning via Autoencoder-Driven Task and New Environment Recognition
This addresses the problem of continual learning in reinforcement learning for agents operating in dynamic environments, though it appears incremental in its approach.
The paper tackled the challenge of continual reinforcement learning by using autoencoders to detect new tasks and match environments, enabling agents to learn new tasks while preserving and retrieving prior knowledge without external signals.
Continual learning for reinforcement learning agents remains a significant challenge, particularly in preserving and leveraging existing information without an external signal to indicate changes in tasks or environments. In this study, we explore the effectiveness of autoencoders in detecting new tasks and matching observed environments to previously encountered ones. Our approach integrates policy optimization with familiarity autoencoders within an end-to-end continual learning system. This system can recognize and learn new tasks or environments while preserving knowledge from earlier experiences and can selectively retrieve relevant knowledge when re-encountering a known environment. Initial results demonstrate successful continual learning without external signals to indicate task changes or reencounters, showing promise for this methodology.