Epistemic Reinforcement Learning – epiRL

EpiRL project aims at investigating the combination of epistemic planning and reinforcement learning (RL), by proposing new algorithms that are efficient, adaptive, and capable of computing decisions relying on theory of knowledge and belief. We expect from this approach an efficiency in the generation of epistemic plans, while decisions made RL algorithms will be explainable. Moreover, the algorithms of EpiRL will be tested and evaluated within a real application that exploits autonomous agents.
The project will address the weaknesses of both epistemic planning and RL:
on the one hand, existing epistemic planning algorithms are costly, do not adapt to the environment, and concepts are hand-crafted and are not learned; on the other hand, in reinforcement learning, agents adapt to their environments but are unable to reason about beliefs of other agents. The newly developed algorithms will combine the strengths of both fields. We propose four workpackages:
1. Study representations of states
2. Develop RL algorithms
3. Study representations of policies
4. Validating our algorithms with our industrial partner DAVI. In particular, we aim at developing a debunking chatbot whose use case will apply to raising awareness about environmental issues.