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Showing versus doing: Teaching by demonstration

Neural Information Processing Systems

People often learn from others' demonstrations, and classic inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) algorithms have brought us closer to realizing this capacity in machines. In contrast, teaching by demonstration has been less well studied computationally. Here, we develop a novel Bayesian model for teaching by demonstration. Stark differences arise when demonstrators are intentionally teaching a task versus simply performing a task. In two experiments, we show that human participants systematically modify their teaching behavior consistent with the predictions of our model. Further, we show that even standard IRL algorithms benefit when learning from behaviors that are intentionally pedagogical. We conclude by discussing IRL algorithms that can take advantage of intentional pedagogy.


AIhub coffee corner: AI, kids, and the future – "generation AI"

AIHub

This month we tackle the topic of young people and what AI tools mean for their future. Joining the conversation this time are: Sanmay Das (Virginia Tech), Tom Dietterich (Oregon State University), Sabine Hauert (University of Bristol), Michael Littman (Brown University), and Ella Scallan (AIhub). As AI tools have become ubiquitous, we've seen growing concern and increasing coverage about how the use of such tools from a formative age might affect children. What do you think the impact will be and what skills might young people need to navigate this AI world? I met up with a bunch of high school friends when I was last in Switzerland and they were all wondering what their kids should study. They were wondering if they should do social science, seeing as AI tools have become adept at many tasks, such as coding, writing, art, etc. I think that we need social sciences, but that we also need people who know the technology and who can continue developing it. I say they should continue doing whatever they're interested in and those jobs will evolve and they'll look different, but there will still be a whole wealth of different types of jobs.



Understanding the Role of Adaptivity in Machine Teaching: The Case of Version Space Learners

Yuxin Chen, Adish Singla, Oisin Mac Aodha, Pietro Perona, Yisong Yue

Neural Information Processing Systems

In real-world applications of education, an effective teacher adaptively chooses the next example to teach based on the learner's current state. However, most existing work in algorithmic machine teachingfocuses on the batch setting, where adaptivity plays no role. In this paper, we study the case of teaching consistent, version space learners in an interactive setting. At any time step, the teacher provides an example, the learner performs an update, and the teacher observes the learner'snew state.


Machine Teaching of Active Sequential Learners

Tomi Peltola, Mustafa Mert Çelikok, Pedram Daee, Samuel Kaski

Neural Information Processing Systems

On the other hand, for goal-oriented tasks, humans create mental models of the environment for planning their actions to achieve their goals [1,2]. In AI systems, recent research has shown that usersformmentalmodelsoftheAI'sstateandbehaviour[ 3,4].



Teaching Inverse Reinforcement Learners via Features and Demonstrations

Luis Haug, Sebastian Tschiatschek, Adish Singla

Neural Information Processing Systems

Weintroduceanaturalquantity,the teaching risk, which measures the potential suboptimality of policies that look optimal to the learner in this setting. We show that bounds on the teaching risk guarantee that the learner is able to find a near-optimal policy using standard algorithms basedoninversereinforcement learning. Basedonthesefindings, we suggest a teaching scheme in which the expert can decrease the teaching risk by updating the learner's worldview, and thus ultimately enable her to find a near-optimalpolicy.



IterativeTeacher-AwareLearning

Neural Information Processing Systems

In human pedagogy, teachers and students can interact adaptively to maximize communication efficiency. Theteacher adjusts herteaching method fordifferent students, and the student, after getting familiar with the teacher's instruction mechanism,caninfertheteacher'sintentiontolearnfaster.