Training neural networks with high-quality pixel-level annotation in histopathology whole-slide images (WSI) is an expensive process due to gigapixel resolution of WSIs. However, recent advances in self-supervised learning have shown that highly descriptive image representations can be learned without the need for annotations. We investigate the application of the recent Hierarchical Image Pyramid Transformer (HIPT) model for the specific task of classification of colorectal biopsies and polyps. After evaluating the effectiveness of TCGA-learned features in the original HIPT model, we incorporate colon biopsy image information into HIPT's pretraining using two distinct strategies: (1) fine-tuning HIPT from the existing TCGA weights and (2) pretraining HIPT from random weight initialization. We compare the performance of these pretraining regimes on two colorectal biopsy classification tasks: binary and multiclass classification.

A major challenge for deep reinforcement learning (DRL) agents is to collaborate with novel partners that were not encountered by them during the training phase. This is specifically worsened by an increased variance in action responses when the DRL agents collaborate with human partners due to the lack of consistency in human behaviors. Recent work have shown that training a single agent as the best response to a diverse population of training partners significantly increases an agent's robustness to novel partners. We further enhance the population-based training approach by introducing a Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) based method for Human-AI Collaboration. Our agent is able to learn multiple best-response policies as its low-level policy while at the same time, it learns a high-level policy that acts as a manager which allows the agent to dynamically switch between the low-level best-response policies based on its current partner. We demonstrate that our method is able to dynamically adapt to novel partners of different play styles and skill levels in the 2-player collaborative Overcooked game environment. We also conducted a human study in the same environment to test the effectiveness of our method when partnering with real human subjects.