Integrating Knowledge Capture and Supervised Learning Through a Human-Computer Interface

Some supervised-learning algorithms can make effective use of domain knowledge in addition to the input-output pairs commonly used in machine learning. However, formulating this additional information often requires an indepth understanding of the specific knowledge representation used by a given learning algorithm. The requirement to use a formal knowledge-representation language means that most domain experts will not be able to articulate their expertise, even when a learning algorithm is capable of exploiting such valuable information. We investigate a method to ease this knowledge acquisition through the use of a graphical, human-computer interface. Our interface allows users to easily provide advice about specific examples, rather than requiring them to provide general rules; we leave the task of properly generalizing such advice to the learning algorithms. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach using the Wargus real- time strategy game, comparing learning with no advice to learning with concrete advice provided through our interface, as well as comparing to using generalized advice written by an AI expert. Our results show that our approach of combining a GUI-based advice language with an advice-taking learning algorithm is an effective way to capture domain knowledge.

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