We consider distributed online min-max resource allocation with a set of parallel agents and a parameter server. Our goal is to minimize the pointwise maximum over a set of time-varying convex and decreasing cost functions, without a priori information about these functions. We propose a novel online algorithm, termed Distributed Online resource Re-Allocation (DORA), where non-stragglers learn to relinquish resource and share resource with stragglers. A notable feature of DORA is that it does not require gradient calculation or projection operation, unlike most existing online optimization strategies. This allows it to substantially reduce the computation overhead in large-scale and distributed networks. We show that the dynamic regret of the proposed algorithm is upper bounded by $O\left(T^{\frac{3}{4}}(1+P_T)^{\frac{1}{4}}\right)$, where $T$ is the total number of rounds and $P_T$ is the path-length of the instantaneous minimizers. We further consider an application to the bandwidth allocation problem in distributed online machine learning. Our numerical study demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed solution and its performance advantage over gradient- and/or projection-based resource allocation algorithms in reducing wall-clock time.

In this research, we extend the universal reinforcement learning (URL) agent models of artificial general intelligence to quantum environments. The utility function of a classical exploratory stochastic Knowledge Seeking Agent, KL-KSA, is generalized to distance measures from quantum information theory on density matrices. Quantum process tomography (QPT) algorithms form the tractable subset of programs for modeling environmental dynamics. The optimal QPT policy is selected based on a mutable cost function based on algorithmic complexity as well as computational resource complexity. Instead of Turing machines, we estimate the cost metrics on a high-level language to allow realistic experimentation. The entire agent design is encapsulated in a self-replicating quine which mutates the cost function based on the predictive value of the optimal policy choosing scheme. Thus, multiple agents with pareto-optimal QPT policies evolve using genetic programming, mimicking the development of physical theories each with different resource trade-offs. This formal framework is termed Quantum Knowledge Seeking Agent (QKSA). Despite its importance, few quantum reinforcement learning models exist in contrast to the current thrust in quantum machine learning. QKSA is the first proposal for a framework that resembles the classical URL models. Similar to how AIXI-tl is a resource-bounded active version of Solomonoff universal induction, QKSA is a resource-bounded participatory observer framework to the recently proposed algorithmic information-based reconstruction of quantum mechanics. QKSA can be applied for simulating and studying aspects of quantum information theory. Specifically, we demonstrate that it can be used to accelerate quantum variational algorithms which include tomographic reconstruction as its integral subroutine.

Coordination graph is a promising approach to model agent collaboration in multi-agent reinforcement learning. It factorizes a large multi-agent system into a suite of overlapping groups that represent the underlying coordination dependencies. One critical challenge in this paradigm is the complexity of computing maximum-value actions for a graph-based value factorization. It refers to the decentralized constraint optimization problem (DCOP), which and whose constant-ratio approximation are NP-hard problems. To bypass this fundamental hardness, this paper proposes a novel method, named Self-Organized Polynomial-time Coordination Graphs (SOP-CG), which uses structured graph classes to guarantee the optimality of the induced DCOPs with sufficient function expressiveness. We extend the graph topology to be state-dependent, formulate the graph selection as an imaginary agent, and finally derive an end-to-end learning paradigm from the unified Bellman optimality equation. In experiments, we show that our approach learns interpretable graph topologies, induces effective coordination, and improves performance across a variety of cooperative multi-agent tasks.

A virtual, autonomous racing challenge launching this week will enable aspiring racers to head to the track without building a car, knowing how to brake and accelerate through a corner, or leaving their computer. And as teams tackle the demands of high-speed and safe driving that pushes race cars to their limits, they will improve the safety of autonomous vehicles and the learning algorithms teaching them to drive. The Learn-to-Race Autonomous Racing Virtual Challenge started Monday, Dec. 6. Competitors use the Learn-to-Race environment to teach an artificially intelligent agent how to race. The challenge is coupled with a workshop on Safe Learning for Autonomous Driving, which is accepting research paper submissions.

In the first article of this series, we have established a patient centric semantic net and discussed structure and possible content of such a net. In this article, we are going to discuss frames and thematic role systems and why they are important in the functioning of an intelligent agent. They are typically top-down knowledge-based structures that sets expectation about one or more events. For example, consider the Diabetes type 2 drug Thiazolidinediones. As a result this medication should not be prescribed to patients with kidney disease or heart problems.

Understanding decentralized dynamics from collective behaviors in swarms is crucial for informing robot controller designs in artificial swarms and multiagent robotic systems. However, the complexity in agent-to-agent interactions and the decentralized nature of most swarms pose a significant challenge to the extraction of single-robot control laws from global behavior. In this work, we consider the important task of learning decentralized single-robot controllers based solely on the state observations of a swarm's trajectory. We present a general framework by adopting knowledge-based neural ordinary differential equations (KNODE) -- a hybrid machine learning method capable of combining artificial neural networks with known agent dynamics. Our approach distinguishes itself from most prior works in that we do not require action data for learning. We apply our framework to two different flocking swarms in 2D and 3D respectively, and demonstrate efficient training by leveraging the graphical structure of the swarms' information network. We further show that the learnt single-robot controllers can not only reproduce flocking behavior in the original swarm but also scale to swarms with more robots.

Games have a long history of serving as a benchmark for progress in artificial intelligence. Recently, approaches using search and learning have shown strong performance across a set of perfect information games, and approaches using game-theoretic reasoning and learning have shown strong performance for specific imperfect information poker variants. We introduce Player of Games, a general-purpose algorithm that unifies previous approaches, combining guided search, self-play learning, and game-theoretic reasoning. Player of Games is the first algorithm to achieve strong empirical performance in large perfect and imperfect information games -- an important step towards truly general algorithms for arbitrary environments. We prove that Player of Games is sound, converging to perfect play as available computation time and approximation capacity increases. Player of Games reaches strong performance in chess and Go, beats the strongest openly available agent in heads-up no-limit Texas hold'em poker (Slumbot), and defeats the state-of-the-art agent in Scotland Yard, an imperfect information game that illustrates the value of guided search, learning, and game-theoretic reasoning.

As the concept and implementation of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning has become relevant, academics, researchers and information professionals involve research in this area. The objective of this systematic literature review is to provide a synthesis of empirical studies exploring application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in libraries. To achieve the objectives of the study, a systematic literature review was conducted based on the original guidelines proposed by Kitchenham et al. (2009). Data was collected from Web of Science, Scopus, LISA and LISTA databases. Following the rigorous/ established selection process, a total of thirty-two articles were finally selected, reviewed and analyzed to summarize on the application of AI and ML domain and techniques which are most often used in libraries. Findings show that the current state of the AI and ML research that is relevant with the LIS domain mainly focuses on theoretical works. However, some researchers also emphasized on implementation projects or case studies. This study will provide a panoramic view of AI and ML in libraries for researchers, practitioners and educators for furthering the more technology-oriented approaches, and anticipating future innovation pathways.

Real-world tasks of interest are generally poorly defined by human-readable descriptions and have no pre-defined reward signals unless it is defined by a human designer. Conversely, data-driven algorithms are often designed to solve a specific, narrowly defined, task with performance metrics that drives the agent's learning. In this work, we present the solution that won first place and was awarded the most human-like agent in the 2021 NeurIPS Competition MineRL BASALT Challenge: Learning from Human Feedback in Minecraft, which challenged participants to use human data to solve four tasks defined only by a natural language description and no reward function. Our approach uses the available human demonstration data to train an imitation learning policy for navigation and additional human feedback to train an image classifier. These modules, together with an estimated odometry map, are then combined into a state-machine designed based on human knowledge of the tasks that breaks them down in a natural hierarchy and controls which macro behavior the learning agent should follow at any instant. We compare this hybrid intelligence approach to both end-to-end machine learning and pure engineered solutions, which are then judged by human evaluators.

People in the crowd then compete with each other to win the rewards. Although in real life, a crowd is usually networked and people influence each other via social ties, existing crowdsourcing contest theories do not aim to answer how interpersonal relationships influence peoples' incentives and behaviors, and thereby affect the crowdsourcing performance. In this work, we novelly take peoples' social ties as a key factor in the modeling and designing of agents' incentives for crowdsourcing contests. We then establish a new contest mechanism by which the requester can impel agents to invite their neighbours to contribute to the task. The mechanism has a simple rule and is very easy for agents to play. According to our equilibrium analysis, in the Bayesian Nash equilibrium agents' behaviors show a vast diversity, capturing that besides the intrinsic ability, the social ties among agents also play a central role for decision-making. After that, we design an effective algorithm to automatically compute the Bayesian Nash equilibrium of the invitation crowdsourcing contest and further adapt it to large graphs. Both theoretical and empirical results show that, the invitation crowdsourcing contest can substantially enlarge the number of contributors, whereby the requester can obtain significantly better solutions without a large advertisement expenditure.