Analysis of Explainable Goal-Driven Reinforcement Learning in a Continuous Simulated Environment

Currently, artificial intelligence is in an important period of growth. Due to the technology boom, it is now possible to solve problems that could not be resolved previously. For example, through goal-driven learning, it is possible that intelligent machines or agents may be able to perform tasks without human intervention. However, this also leads to the problem of understanding the agent’s decision making. Therefore, explainable goal-driven learning attempts to eliminate this gap. This work focuses on the adaptability of two explainability methods in continuous environments. The methods based on learning and introspection proposed a probability value for success to explain the agent’s behavior. These had already been tested in discrete environments. The continuous environment used in this study is the car-racing problem. This is a simulated car racing game that forms part of the Python Open AI Gym Library. The agents in this environment were trained with the Deep Q-Network algorithm, and in parallel the explainability methods were implemented. This research included a proposal for carrying out the adaptation and implementation of these methods in continuous states. The adaptation of the learning method produced major changes, implemented through an artificial neural network. The obtained probabilities of both methods were consistent throughout the experiments. The probability result was greater in the learning method. In terms of computational resources, the introspection method was slightly better than its counterpart.