Reinforcement learning (RL) agents typically learn tabula rasa, without prior knowledge of the world. However, if initialized with knowledge of high-level subgoals and transitions between subgoals, RL agents could utilize this Abstract World Model (AWM) for planning and exploration. We propose using few-shot large language models (LLMs) to hypothesize an AWM, that will be verified through world experience, to improve sample efficiency of RL agents. Our DECKARD agent applies LLM-guided exploration to item crafting in Minecraft in two phases: (1) the Dream phase where the agent uses an LLM to decompose a task into a sequence of subgoals, the hypothesized AWM; and (2) the Wake phase where the agent learns a modular policy for each subgoal and verifies or corrects the hypothesized AWM. Our method of hypothesizing an AWM with LLMs and then verifying the AWM based on agent experience not only increases sample efficiency over contemporary methods by an order of magnitude but is also robust to and corrects errors in the LLM, successfully blending noisy internet-scale information from LLMs with knowledge grounded in environment dynamics.

Rivers of ink have been spilled over the centuries warning scientist and engineer types not to create technology that might turn against its human creators. The story of Frankenstein would arguably be the prototype, although stories of murderous golem and living statues predate Mary Shelly's 1818 horror novel. Karel Čapek brought the morality play into its modern form by inventing the term "robot" in 1920 to describe his artificially-created humanoid workers. Stronger and more resilient than humans, two of his robots free themselves from bondage and hint that they may be capable of self-replication. Like slaveholders spooked by rumors of revolt, scientists are urged to double-down on stronger methods to keep artificial minds in chains.

Harrison Ford plays Deckard in Ridley Scott's 1982 noir thriller, "Blade Runner," the 25th anniversary theatrical release, "Blade Runner: The Final Cut" opens Friday at Bay Area theaters. Ran on: 11-29-2007 & quo;Blade Runner: The Final Cut,&quo; with Harrison Ford, revisits the Ridley Scott film 25 years after its original release. Ran on: 11-29-2007 ALSO Ran on: 11-30-2007 Harrison Ford plays Rick Deckard in Ridley Scott's & quo;Blade Runner: The Final Cut,&quo; a restored version of the 1982 movie. The world is like a bad science-fiction movie right about now. The streets are nearly empty, making it easy to think up last-man-on-Earth scenarios.

Rutger Hauer, the Dutch actor who portrayed Roy Batty in the film Blade Runner, passed away recently. To celebrate his iconic role, we are revisiting this piece on the Voight-Kampff test, a device to detect if a person is really human. Is Rick Deckard a replicant, an advanced bioengineered being? The jury concerning the character in 1982's Blade Runner is still out. Harrison Ford, who plays Deckard in the film, thinks he's human.

Warning: spoilers ahead for Netflix's Lost in Space. In the first episode of Netflix's new Lost in Space, Will Robinson (Maxwell Jenkins) discovers a robot (Brian Steele) and saves it from a spreading forest fire. As a result, it seems to imprint upon him, following him around and obeying him like a loyal pet. As Will is suddenly made responsible for another being's safety, he starts to mature. The robot starts to develop, too, becoming an integral part of the Robinson family as they struggle to adjust their biases and preconceptions about artificial intelligence.

Blade Runner 2049 is a miracle. It's a sequel that nobody really wanted -- certainly not fans of the seminal 1982 original by Ridley Scott. But it turns out that Blade Runner 2049 -- directed by Denis Villeneuve -- is actually an ideal sequel. It builds on its incredibly influential predecessor by asking deeper questions about AI. As the lines between humans and replicants blur, the idea of being "more human than human" seems truer than ever.

Is Rick Deckard a replicant, an advanced bioengineered being? The jury concerning the character in 1982's Blade Runner is still out. Harrison Ford, who plays Deckard in the film, thinks he is. Ridley Scott, the film's director, is adamant that he's not. Hampton Fancher, the screenwriter for the original film and the sequel, Blade Runner 2049, out today, prefers the ambiguity: "I like asking the question," he's said, "but I think it's nonsense to answer it."

It's such a simple question Rachael (Sean Young) asks Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) in Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner: "Have you ever retired a human by mistake?" They've just met in Eldon Tyrell's opulent offices, and Deckard, a replicant bounty hunter, has come to interview Rachael as a means of testing the LAPD's replicant-detecting Voight-Kampff device. Deckard's equally simple response-- "no"--comes without hesitation; he nonchalantly shrugs it off as though he's never bothered questioning the supposed difference between humans and the androids he's contracted to kill. The entire exchange takes about five seconds, yet it encapsulates everything that has fueled the public's decades-long love affair with Blade Runner's existential dread: What are humans? What myths do they take for granted? What have they been missing?

Upon its initial release in 1982, Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" was a critical and commercial disappointment. Over time the film amassed a devoted cult following, and in 1992, upon the release of Scott's director's cut, Times film critic Kenneth Turan wrote a deep dive into the making of the film and its rediscovery. Twenty-five years later a sequel, "Blade Runner 2049," will open in theaters nationwide. This article was originally published on Sept. 13, 1992. Elegant cars gliding through a decaying infrastructure, the dispossessed huddling in the shadow of bright skyscrapers, the sensation of a dystopian, multiethnic civilization that has managed to simultaneously advance and regress -- these are scenes of modern urban decline, and if they make you think of a movie, and chances are they will, it can have only one name: "Blade Runner." Few, if any, motion pictures have the gift of predicting the future as well as crystallizing an indelible image of it, but that is the key to "Blade Runner's" accomplishments. One of the most enduringly popular science-fiction films, it revived the career of a celebrated writer, helped launch a literary movement and set a standard for the artistic use of special effects many people feel has never been equaled. And, until now, it has never been seen in anything like the form intended by the people who created it. Starting this weekend, a full decade later than anyone anticipated, Ridley Scott's original director's cut of this moody, brilliant film is having its premier engagement, opening in 60 cities nationwide, with another 90 to follow in three weeks. While classic revivals have become commonplace, the usual re-released versions offer either a technical improvement (Orson Welles' "Othello") or else a sprinkle of new footage ("Lawrence of Arabia"). This "Blade Runner" is a very different version, a cut that until two years ago no one even knew existed, and because of the film's reputation and power it is intended by Warner Bros. to make some serious money. Yet if this seems like a simplistic tale of good finally triumphing over evil, be aware that absolutely nothing about "Blade Runner" is as simple as it first seems. For this was a film that was awful to make, even by normal Hollywood standards of trauma, agonizing to restructure and rediscovered by a total fluke. The people who worked on it called it "Blood Runner," a sardonic tribute to the amount of personal grief and broken relationships it caused, and they recall it with horror and awe.

Before a recent press screening of Blade Runner 2049, a representative from Warner Bros. read a note from Denis Villeneuve, in which the director politely asked those assembled to preserve the film's many secrets. It's a reasonable request, but a difficult one, as any discussion of 2049 is bound to involve spoiler-spilling queries, many of them existential. And, perhaps, the most pressing head-scratcher of all: Just how the hell does Harrison Ford get his arms to look like that? The actor's formidable 75-year-old limbs--bulging with squiggly veins, and just itching to swing--get a fair amount of screen-time in Blade Runner: 2049, Villeneuve's sweeping, deeply affecting new sci-fi drama, and the sequel to Ridley Scott's future-redefining 1982 original. That film marked Ford's first appearance as Rick Deckard, a lean, oft-tipsy, emotionally akimbo Los Angeles robot-hunter tasked with tracking down on-the-lam androids (or "replicants").