Faster program adaptation through reward attribution inference

Abstract

In the adaptation-based programming (ABP) paradigm, programs may contain variable parts (function calls, parameter values, etc.) that can be take a number of different values. Programs also contain reward statements with which a programmer can provide feedback about how well a program is performing with respect to achieving its goals (for example, achieving a high score on some scale). By repeatedly running the program, a machine learning component will, guided by the rewards, gradually adjust the automatic choices made in the variable program parts so that they converge toward an optimal strategy.