# Peter Stone's Selected Publications

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## A General Purpose Task Specification Language for Bootstrap Learning

Ian Fasel, Michael Quinlan, and Peter Stone. A General Purpose Task Specification Language for Bootstrap Learning. Technical Report AI-08-1, The University of Texas at Austin, Department ofComputer Sciences, AI Laboratory, 2008.

### Abstract

Reinforcement learning (RL) is an effective framework for online learning by autonomous agents. Most RL research focuses on domain-independent learning algorithms, requiring an expert human to define the environment (state and action representation) and task to be performed (e.g. start state and reward function) on a case-by-case basis. In this paper, we describe a general language for a teacher to specify sequential decision making tasks to RL agents. The teacher may communicate properties such as start states, reward functions, termination conditions, successful execution traces, task decompositions, and other advice. The learner may then practice and learn the task on its own using any RL algorithm. We demonstrate our language in a simple GridWorld example and on the RoboCup soccer keepaway benchmark problem. The language forms the basis of a larger Bootstrap Learning'' model for machine learning, a paradigm for incremental development of complete systems through integration of multiple machine learning techniques.

### BibTeX Entry

@TechReport{faseltr08,
author       = "Ian Fasel and Michael Quinlan and Peter Stone",
title	       = "A General Purpose Task Specification Language for Bootstrap Learning",
institution  = "The University of Texas at Austin, Department of
Computer Sciences, AI Laboratory",
number       = "AI-08-1",
year	       = 2008,
abstract     = {
Reinforcement learning (RL) is an effective
framework for online learning by autonomous
agents. Most RL research focuses on
domain-independent learning \emph{algorithms},
requiring an expert human to define the
\emph{environment} (state and action representation)
and \emph{task} to be performed (e.g.\ start state
and reward function) on a case-by-case basis. In
this paper, we describe a general language for a
teacher to specify sequential decision making tasks
to RL agents.  The teacher may communicate
properties such as start states, reward functions,
termination conditions, successful execution traces,
forms the basis of a larger Bootstrap Learning''