There is a growing interest in large-scale machine learning and optimization over decentralized networks, e.g. in the context of multi-agent learning and federated learning. Due to the imminent need to alleviate the communication burden, the investigation of communication-efficient distributed optimization algorithms --- particularly for empirical risk minimization --- has flourished in recent years. A large faction of these algorithms have been developed for the master/slave setting, relying on the presence of a central parameter server that can communicate with all agents. This paper focuses on distributed optimization over the network-distributed or the decentralized setting, where each agent is only allowed to aggregate information from its neighbors over a network (namely, no centralized coordination is present). By properly adjusting the global gradient estimate via a tracking term, we develop a communication-efficient approximate Newton-type method, called Network-DANE, which generalizes DANE [Shamir et al., 2014] for decentralized networks. We establish linear convergence of Network-DANE for quadratic losses, which shed light on the impact of data homogeneity and network connectivity upon the rate of convergence. Our key algorithmic ideas can be applied, in a systematic manner, to obtain decentralized versions of other master/slave distributed algorithms. A notable example is our development of Network-SVRG, which employs stochastic variance reduction [Johnson and Zhang, 2013] at each agent to accelerate local computation. The proposed algorithms are built upon the primal formulation without resorting to the dual. Numerical evidence is provided to demonstrate the appealing performance of our algorithms over competitive baselines, in terms of both communication and computation efficiency.

This paper introduces a new negotiating agent model for automated negotiation. We focus on applications without time pressure with multidi-mensional negotiation on both continuous and discrete domains. The agent bidding strategy relies on Monte Carlo Tree Search, which is a trendy method since it has been used with success on games with high branching factor such as Go. It also exploits opponent modeling techniques thanks to Gaussian process regression and Bayesian learning. Evaluation is done by confronting the existing agents that are able to negotiate in such context: Random Walker, Tit-for-tat and Nice Tit-for-Tat. None of those agents succeeds in beating our agent. Also, the modular and adaptive nature of our approach is a huge advantage when it comes to optimize it in specific applicative contexts.

We describe the concept of logical scaffolds, which can be used to improve the quality of software that relies on AI components. We explain how some of the existing ideas on runtime monitors for perception systems can be seen as a specific instance of logical scaffolds. Furthermore, we describe how logical scaffolds may be useful for improving AI programs beyond perception systems, to include general prediction systems and agent behavior models. Keywords: AI · Autonomous systems · Formal methods. 1 Introduction Recent progress in AI has led to possible deployment in a wide variety of important domains. This includes safety-critical cyberphysical systems such as automobiles [1] and airplanes [7], but also decision making systems in diverse domains including legal [15] and military applications [3].

We plot the judge's probability of the target answer given that sentence against how often humans also select that target answer given that same sentence. Humans tend to find a sentence to be strong evidence for an answer when the judge model finds it to be strong evidence. Strong evidence to a model tends to be strong evidence to humans as shown in Figure 7. Combined with the previous result, we can see that learned agents are more accurate at predicting sentences that humans find to be strong evidence. F Model Evaluation of Evidence on DREAM Figure 8 shows how convincing various judge models find each evidence agent. Our findings on DREAM are similar to those from RACE in §4.2. Figure 8: On DREAM, how often each judge selects an agent's answer when given a single agent-chosen sentence. The black line divides learned agents (right) and search agents (left), with human evidence selection in the leftmost column. All agents find evidence that convinces judge models more often than a no-evidence baseline (33%). Learned agents predicting p ( i) or p ( i) find the most broadly convincing evidence.

Multi-agent reinforcement learning has shown promise on a variety of cooperative tasks as a consequence of recent developments in differentiable inter-agent communication. However, most architectures are limited to pools of homogeneous agents, limiting their applicability. Here we propose a modular framework for learning complex tasks in which a traditional monolithic agent is framed as a collection of cooperating heterogeneous agents. We apply this approach to model sensorimotor coordination in the neocortex as a multi-agent reinforcement learning problem. Our results demonstrate proof-of-concept of the proposed architecture and open new avenues for learning complex tasks and for understanding functional localization in the brain and future intelligent systems.

OpenSpiel is a collection of environments and algorithms for research in general reinforcement learning and search/planning in games. OpenSpiel supports n-player (single- and multi- agent) zero-sum, cooperative and general-sum, one-shot and sequential, strictly turn-taking and simultaneous-move, perfect and imperfect information games, as well as traditional multiagent environments such as (partially- and fully- observable) grid worlds and social dilemmas. OpenSpiel also includes tools to analyze learning dynamics and other common evaluation metrics. This document serves both as an overview of the code base and an introduction to the terminology, core concepts, and algorithms across the fields of reinforcement learning, computational game theory, and search.

We face many challenges with how to use technology for security. There's a race to develop screening tech to quickly assess facial images and determine threat levels. AI systems are being developed along these lines, including one called the Avatar (Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real time), a system using AI techniques to assess threat levels, funded in part by the federal government. The developers claim only 80% accuracy. A cold call lab test scam is costing people their identities and money.

Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) extends (single-agent) reinforcement learning (RL) by introducing additional agents and (potentially) partial observability of the environment. Consequently, algorithms for solving MARL problems incorporate various extensions beyond traditional RL methods, such as a learned communication protocol between cooperative agents that enables exchange of private information or adaptive modeling of opponents in competitive settings. One popular algorithmic construct is a memory mechanism such that an agent's decisions can depend not only upon the current state but also upon the history of observed states and actions. In this paper, we study how a memory mechanism can be useful in environments with different properties, such as observability, internality and presence of a communication channel. Using both prior work and new experiments, we show that a memory mechanism is helpful when learning agents need to model other agents and/or when communication is constrained in some way; however we must to be cautious of agents achieving effective memoryfulness through other means.

A lot of efforts have been devoted to investigating how agents can learn effectively and achieve coordination in multiagent systems. However, it is still challenging in large-scale multiagent settings due to the complex dynamics between the environment and agents and the explosion of state-action space. In this paper, we design a novel Dynamic Multiagent Curriculum Learning (DyMA-CL) to solve large-scale problems by starting from learning on a multiagent scenario with a small size and progressively increasing the number of agents. We propose three transfer mechanisms across curricula to accelerate the learning process. Moreover, due to the fact that the state dimension varies across curricula,, and existing network structures cannot be applied in such a transfer setting since their network input sizes are fixed.

A lot of efforts have been devoted to investigating how agents can learn effectively and achieve coordination in multiagent systems. However, it is still challenging in large-scale multiagent settings due to the complex dynamics between the environment and agents and the explosion of state-action space. In this paper, we design a novel Dynamic Multiagent Curriculum Learning (DyMA-CL) to solve large-scale problems by starting from learning on a multiagent scenario with a small size and progressively increasing the number of agents. We propose three transfer mechanisms across curricula to accelerate the learning process. Moreover, due to the fact that the state dimension varies across curricula,, and existing network structures cannot be applied in such a transfer setting since their network input sizes are fixed.