Author(s): Ayo Akinkugbe
Originally published on Towards AI.
Photo by Girl with red hat on Unsplash
Introduction: Learning by Trial and Error
Imagine teaching a dog to fetch a ball. You don’t hand the dog a manual titled “The Complete Guide to Ball Retrieval.” Instead, you throw the ball, and when the dog brings it back, you give it a treat. When the dog gets distracted and wanders off, you withhold the treat. Over dozens of repetitions, the dog learns that bringing the ball back leads to rewards, while ignoring the ball doesn’t. This process of learning through interaction, experimentation, and feedback is exactly what reinforcement learning does for artificial intelligence.
