Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) brings the power of deep neural networks to
bear on the generic task of trial-and-error learning, and its effectiveness has
been convincingly demonstrated on tasks such as Atari video games and the game
of Go. However, contemporary DRL systems inherit a number of shortcomings from
the current generation of deep learning techniques. For example, they require
very large datasets to work effectively, entailing that they are slow to learn
even when such datasets are available. Moreover, they lack the ability to
reason on an abstract level, which makes it difficult to implement high-level
cognitive functions such as transfer learning, analogical reasoning, and
hypothesis-based reasoning. Finally, their operation is largely opaque to
humans, rendering them unsuitable for domains in which verifiability is
important. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end reinforcement learning
architecture comprising a neural back end and a symbolic front end with the
potential to overcome each of these shortcomings. As proof-of-concept, we
present a preliminary implementation of the architecture and apply it to
several variants of a simple video game. We show that the resulting system --
though just a prototype -- learns effectively, and, by acquiring a set of
symbolic rules that are easily comprehensible to humans, dramatically
outperforms a conventional, fully neural DRL system on a stochastic variant of
the game.

该研究提出了一个神经和符号端到端强化学习架构，能够克服当前深度学习技术的局限性，如需要非常大的数据集工作、难以实现高级认知功能和透明性欠佳等。研究者以简单的视频游戏为例，展示了这个架构的实现原型，结果表明它能够有效地学习，并通过获得一组符号规则，可将性能提高到比传统完全神经强化学习系统更好的水平。