What is Reinforcement Learning?
Animal trainers know that animal behavior can be influenced by rewarding desirable behaviors. A dog trainer gives the dog a treat when it does a trick correctly. This reinforces the behavior, and the dog is more likely to do the trick correctly the next time. Reinforcement Learning Borrowed This Insight from Animal Psychology.
But reinforcement learning is about training computational agents, not animals. The agent can be a software agent like a chess-Playing program. But the agent can also be an embodied entity like a robot learning to do household chores. Similarly, the environment of an agent can be virtual, like the chessboard or the designed world in a video game. But it can also be a house where a robot is working.
Just like animals, an agent can perceive aspects of its environment and take actions. A chess-Playing agent can access the chessboard configuration and make moves. A Robot Can Sense Its Surroundings with Cameras and Microphones. It can use its motors to move about in the physical world.
