Learning to execute algorithms is a fundamental problem that has been widely studied. Prior work (Veličković et al., 2019) has shown that to enable systematic generalisation on graph algorithms it is critical to have access to the intermediate steps of the program/algorithm. In many reasoning tasks, where algorithmic-style reasoning is important, we only have access to the input and output examples. Thus, inspired by the success of pre-training on similar tasks or data in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computer vision, we set out to study how we can transfer algorithmic reasoning knowledge. Specifically, we investigate how we can use algorithms for which we have access to the execution trace to learn to solve similar tasks for which we do not. We investigate two major classes of graph algorithms, parallel algorithms such as breadth-first search and Bellman-Ford and sequential greedy algorithms such as Prims and Dijkstra. Due to the fundamental differences between algorithmic reasoning knowledge and feature extractors such as used in Computer vision or NLP, we hypothesis that standard transfer techniques will not be sufficient to achieve systematic generalisation. To investigate this empirically we create a dataset including 9 algorithms and 3 different graph types. We validate this empirically and show how instead multi-task learning can be used to achieve the transfer of algorithmic reasoning knowledge.

Learning to execute algorithms is a fundamental problem that has been widely studied.

Learning to execute algorithms is a fundamental problem that has been widely studied. Prior work (Veličković et al., 2019) has shown that to enable systematic generalisation on graph algorithms it is critical to have access to the intermediate steps of the program/algorithm. In many reasoning tasks, where algorithmic-style reasoning is important, we only have access to the input and output examples. Thus, inspired by the success of pre-training on similar tasks or data in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computer vision, we set out to study how we can transfer algorithmic reasoning knowledge. Specifically, we investigate how we can use algorithms for which we have access to the execution trace to learn to solve similar tasks for which we do not. We investigate two major classes of graph algorithms, parallel algorithms such as breadth-first search and Bellman-Ford and sequential greedy algorithms such as Prims and Dijkstra.

This paper presents a neuro-symbolic agent that combines deep reinforcement learning (DRL) with temporal logic (TL), and achieves systematic out-of-distribution generalisation in tasks that involve following a formally specified instruction. Specifically, the agent learns general notions of negation and disjunction, and successfully applies them to previously unseen objects without further training. To this end, we also introduce Task Temporal Logic (TTL), a learning-oriented formal language, whose atoms are designed to help the training of a DRL agent targeting systematic generalisation. To validate this combination of logic-based and neural-network techniques, we provide experimental evidence for the kind of neural-network architecture that most enhances the generalisation performance of the agent. Our findings suggest that the right architecture can significatively improve the ability of the agent to generalise in systematic ways, even with abstract operators, such as negation, which previous research have struggled with.

The question of whether deep neural networks are good at generalising beyond their immediate training experience is of critical importance for learning-based approaches to AI. Here, we demonstrate strong emergent systematic generalisation in a neural network agent and isolate the factors that support this ability. In environments ranging from a grid-world to a rich interactive 3D Unity room, we show that an agent can correctly exploit the compositional nature of a symbolic language to interpret never-seen-before instructions. We observe this capacity not only when instructions refer to object properties (colors and shapes) but also verb-like motor skills (lifting and putting) and abstract modifying operations (negation). We identify three factors that can contribute to this facility for systematic generalisation: (a) the number of object/word experiences in the training set; (b) the invariances afforded by a first-person, egocentric perspective; and (c) the variety of visual input experienced by an agent that perceives the world actively over time. Thus, while neural nets trained in idealised or reduced situations may fail to exhibit a compositional or systematic understanding of their experience, this competence can readily emerge when, like human learners, they have access to many examples of richly varying, multi-modal observations as they learn.