Intelligent tutors have shown success in delivering a personalized and adaptive learning experience. However, there exist challenges regarding the granularity of knowledge in existing frameworks and the resulting instructions they can provide. To address these issues, we propose HTN-based tutors, a new intelligent tutoring framework that represents expert models using Hierarchical Task Networks (HTNs). Like other tutoring frameworks, it allows flexible encoding of different problem-solving strategies while providing the additional benefit of a hierarchical knowledge organization. We leverage the latter to create tutors that can adapt the granularity of their scaffolding. This organization also aligns well with the compositional nature of skills.

In this work, we focus on advancing the state of the art in intelligent agents that can learn complex procedural tasks from humans. Our main innovation is to view the interaction between the human and the robot as a mixed- initiative collaboration. Our contribution is to integrate hierarchical task networks and collaborative discourse theory into the learning from demonstration paradigm to enable robots to learn complex tasks in collaboration with the human teacher.

Intelligent autonomous agents that are acting in dynamic environmentsin real-time are often required to follow long-termstrategies while also remaining reactive and being able to actdeliberately. In order to create intelligent behaviors for videogame characters, there are two common approaches – plannersare used for long-term strategical planning, whereas BehaviorTrees allow for reactive acting. Although both methodologieshave their advantages, when used on their own, theyfail to fully achieve both requirements described above. Inthis work, we propose a hybrid approach combining a HierarchicalTask Network planner for high-level planning whiledelegating low-level decision making and acting to BehaviorTrees. Furthermore, we compare this approach with a pureplanner in a multi-agent environment.

In this work, we focus on advancing the state of the art in intelligent agents that can learn complex procedural tasks from humans. Our main innovation is to view the interaction between the human and the robot as a mixed- initiative collaboration. Our contribution is to integrate hierarchical task networks and collaborative discourse theory into the learning from demonstration paradigm to enable robots to learn complex tasks in collaboration with the human teacher.

We propose automatically learning probabilistic Hierarchical Task Networks (pH-TNs) in order to capture a user's preferences on plans, by observing only the user's behavior. HTNs are a common choice of representation for a variety of purposes in planning, including work on learning in planning. Our contributions are (a) learning structure and (b) representing preferences. In contrast, prior work employing HTNs considers learning method preconditions (instead of structure) and representing domain physics or search control knowledge (rather than preferences). Initially we will assume that the observed distribution of plans is an accurate representation of user preference, and then generalize to the situation where feasibility constraints frequently prevent the execution of preferred plans. In order to learn a distribution on plans we adapt an Expectation-Maximization (EM) technique from the discipline of (probabilistic) grammar induction, taking the perspective of task reductions as productions in a context-free grammar over primitive actions. To account for the difference between the distributions of possible and preferred plans we subsequently modify this core EM technique, in short, by rescaling its input.

It has long been recognized that users can have complex preferences on plans.  Non-intrusive learning of such preferences by observing the plans executed by the user is an attractive idea. Unfortunately, the executed plans are often not a true representation of user preferences, as they result from the interaction between user preferences and feasibility constraints. In the travel planning scenario, a user whose true preference is to travel by a plane may well be frequently observed traveling by car because of feasibility constraints (perhaps the user is a poor graduate student). In this work, we describe a novel method for learning true user preferences obfuscated by such feasibility constraints.  Our base learner induces probabilistic hierarchical task networks (pHTNs) from sets of training plans. Our approach is to rescale the input so that it represents the user's preference distribution on plans rather than the observed distribution on plans.

This paper describes how to learn Hierarchical Task Networks (HTNs) in nondeterministic planning domains, where actions may have multiple possible outcomes.  We discuss several desired properties that guarantee that the resulting HTNs will correctly handle the nondeterminism in the domain.  We developed a new learning algorithm, called ND-HTN-Maker, that exploits these properties.  We implemented ND-HTN-Maker in the recently-proposed HTN-Maker system, a goal-regression based HTN learning approach.  In our theoretical study, we show that ND-HTN-Maker soundly produces HTN planning knowledge in low-order polynomial times, despite the nondeterminism.  In our experiments with two nondeterministic planning domains, ND-SHOP2, a well-known HTN planning algorithm for nondeterministic domains, significantly outperformed (in some cases, by about 3 orders of magnitude) the well-known planner MBP using the learned HTNs.