On The Hardness of Reinforcement Learning With Value-Function Approximation (and The Lack of Understanding Thereof)
Value-function approximation methods that operate in batch mode have foundational importance to reinforcement learning (RL). Finite sample guarantees for these methods—which provide the theoretical backbones for empirical (“deep”) RL today—crucially rely on strong representation assumptions,…
Foundations of Data Science
Computer science as an academic discipline began in the 1960s. Emphasis was on programming languages, compilers, operating systems, and the mathematical theory that supported these areas. Courses in theoretical computer science covered finite automata, regular…