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Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction
(Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning)
by
Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the key ideas and algorithms of reinforcement learning. Their discussion ranges from the history of the field's intellectual foundations to the most recent developments and applications.
Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach t ...more
Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach t ...more
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Hardcover, 322 pages
Published
February 26th 1998
by Bradford Book
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Start your review of Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction

Jan 21, 2014
Jon Gauthier
marked it as read-part
Despite its age, this book is still the canonical introduction to reinforcement learning.
I'm reading parts as necessary — not sure if I'll ever read cover-to-cover. In any case this has been an indispensable resource in my research career.
From the outside, RL seems mathy and somewhat stilted; from the inside, there is a lot of room for creativity and the core concepts are quite straightforward. I credit this book (along with some incredibly talented mentors) for introducing me to that beautiful ...more
I'm reading parts as necessary — not sure if I'll ever read cover-to-cover. In any case this has been an indispensable resource in my research career.
From the outside, RL seems mathy and somewhat stilted; from the inside, there is a lot of room for creativity and the core concepts are quite straightforward. I credit this book (along with some incredibly talented mentors) for introducing me to that beautiful ...more

I' not finished this book but already want to leave a review. This is a very readable and still rigorous description of reinforcement learning. The main difference between this book and many others in the field of machine learning is that the author really tries to make his work approachable by others. Reading this is a joy, highly recommended.
...more

One of the best book I ever read. A big step toward AI. The book inspired me to dig deeper.
A good supplementary would be an online course by Sutton's student and a former lead at Deepmind David Silver. ...more
A good supplementary would be an online course by Sutton's student and a former lead at Deepmind David Silver. ...more

The book I spent my Christmas holidays with was Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto. The authors are considered the founding fathers of the field. And the book is an often-referred textbook and part of the basic reading list for AI researchers. Given my own interest and fledgling attempts in the area (I trained my first models in 2017), I thought worthwhile to spend some time learning some basics.
Reinforcement learning is one of the hottest fields in ...more
Reinforcement learning is one of the hottest fields in ...more

Great book explaining the basic concepts of reinforcement learning. Parts I and II are very well explained. Part III I didn't like much but still quite informative, seems to be oriented for future research.
...more

For me, this is one of the best books on AI. Even though the material is not that simple, everything is clearly explained and the book is comprehensible even for people who are not familiar with the concepts. Even though this is an older book, it is still the best I've seen on the topic.
...more

A really excellent textbook serving as an introduction to the field of Reinforcement Learning.
Does a really great job in a lot of ways:
i) very clear descriptions of almost all concepts
ii) a very systematic description that allows you to build a framework for understanding the field, permitting you to fit new bits of information into that framework
iii) Shows current work, extensions and touches on some recent exciting developments
Not so good:
i) trys very hard to be light on the maths, to the exte ...more
Does a really great job in a lot of ways:
i) very clear descriptions of almost all concepts
ii) a very systematic description that allows you to build a framework for understanding the field, permitting you to fit new bits of information into that framework
iii) Shows current work, extensions and touches on some recent exciting developments
Not so good:
i) trys very hard to be light on the maths, to the exte ...more

A little dated, but in terms of learning the basics without a whole lot of digging, this is probably the best book out there. If you are thinking about getting into RL, I would recommend reading this first, then maybe Decision Making Under Uncertainty, reading some papers, reading the white paper on OpenAI's gym, and then messing around with gym. Sutton gives some excellent resources for understanding the history of RL and the maths behind it all, and if you have the time, it's worth reading all
...more

I only had enough knowledge to follow this book up until about chapter 10. Even so, so far one of my favourite books on machine learning. Clear, well-described problems within well-structured chapters, which build on each other in a logical way. Some folks have a working directory of the most illustrative problems from the book here: https://github.com/ShangtongZhang/rei...
...more

Dense and informative. It would be helpful if there was a greater focus on building basic intuition with descriptive figures before diving into the technical details and heavy math. Like many textbooks the exercises felt like enormous jumps from the material and a better guide into them would be nice. Overall, though the book does give a nice tour-de-force of all the learning strategies developed to date and explores nuances of their behavior.

Since its arrival it has been considered the bible for reinforcement learning. Sutton and Barto explain everything very well. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to start in the field of reinforcement learning. I do have to say that the first edition is missing some new developments, but a second edition is on the way (free pdf can be found online).

"Also related to TD learning are Holland's (1975, 1976) early ideas about consistency among value predictions. These influenced one of the authors (Barto), who was a graduate student from 1970 to 1975 at the University of Michigan, where Holland was teaching. Holland's ideas led to a number of TD-related systems..."
...more

worth re-reading.
great illustration on fundamental conceptual ideas.
needs some time to internalize all the methods and tricks about RL.
once you really got the idea, reinforcement learning becomes very intuitive.
yep, that's the most sensible way to build an automatic learning/optimizing robot.
...more
great illustration on fundamental conceptual ideas.
needs some time to internalize all the methods and tricks about RL.
once you really got the idea, reinforcement learning becomes very intuitive.
yep, that's the most sensible way to build an automatic learning/optimizing robot.
...more

This is the book I read while following my RL course in IISc.
A good supplemental material to this book would be David Silver's course on the same topic on YouTube.
This book is succinct and provides the required intuitions.
Along with the Math and the Algorithms the initial chapters provide the breakthroughs in Behavioral Psychology which led to progress in RL. ...more
A good supplemental material to this book would be David Silver's course on the same topic on YouTube.
This book is succinct and provides the required intuitions.
Along with the Math and the Algorithms the initial chapters provide the breakthroughs in Behavioral Psychology which led to progress in RL. ...more

I read this book along "Reinforcement Learning Specialization" in Coursera:
https://www.coursera.org/specializati...
This book is compelling, complete, and it explains concepts in a way that is very understandable.
...more
https://www.coursera.org/specializati...
This book is compelling, complete, and it explains concepts in a way that is very understandable.
...more
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