Successor features — what and why?
hardAnswer
- Barreto et al. 2017.
- Decompose reward as r = φ(s, a, s') · w.
- Value function factors: V(s) = ψ(s) · w where are 'successor features'.
- New task (new w) can reuse learned ψ — instant transfer without relearning value function.
- Foundation of generalized policy improvement (GPI) across tasks; applications in continual learning + universal RL.
Check yourself — multiple choice
- Random
- Decompose r = φ · w, V(s) = ψ(s) · w with successor features; new task = new w, reuse ψ → instant transfer without re-learn; GPI foundation
- Same as Q
- Not real
Successor features: V = ψ·w; new w reuses ψ for zero-shot task transfer.
#theory
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