Learning perceptual schemas to avoid the utility problem

Abstract

This paper describes principles for representing and organising planning knowledge in a machine learning architecture. One of the difficulties with learning about tasks requiring planning is the utility problem: as more knowledge is acquired by the learner, the utilisation of that knowledge takes on a complexity which overwhelms the mechanisms of the original task. This problem does not, however, occur with human learners: on the contrary, it is usually the case that, the more knowledgeable the learner, the greater the efficiency and accuracy in locating a solution. The reason for this lies in the types of knowledge acquired by the human learner and its organisation. We describe the basic representations which underlie the superior abilities of human experts, and describe algorithms for using equivalent representations in a machine learning architecture.