Think of reward not as “here’s an ice-cream for being a good boy” and more “you passed my test. I will now do neurosurgery on you to make you more likely to behave the same way in the future”. The result of applying the “reward” in both cases is that you’re more likely to act as desired next time. In humans it’s because you expect to get something nice out of being good, in computers it’s because they’ve been modified to do so. It’s hard to directly change how humans think and behave, so you have to do it via ice-cream and beatings. While with computers you can just modify their memory.
“Reward” in the context of reinforcement learning is the “goal” we’re training the program to maximise, rather than a literal dopamine hit. For instance, AlphaGo’s reward is winning games of Go. When it wins a game, it adjusts itself to do more of what won it the game, and the other way when it loses. It’s less like the reward a human gets from eating ice-cream, and more like the feedback a coach might give you on your tennis swing that lets you adjust and make better shots. We have no reason to suspect there’s any human analogue to feeling good.
How are we able to “reward” a computer? I feel so incredibly silly for this next bit but… does it feel good?
Think of reward not as “here’s an ice-cream for being a good boy” and more “you passed my test. I will now do neurosurgery on you to make you more likely to behave the same way in the future”. The result of applying the “reward” in both cases is that you’re more likely to act as desired next time. In humans it’s because you expect to get something nice out of being good, in computers it’s because they’ve been modified to do so. It’s hard to directly change how humans think and behave, so you have to do it via ice-cream and beatings. While with computers you can just modify their memory.
“Reward” in the context of reinforcement learning is the “goal” we’re training the program to maximise, rather than a literal dopamine hit. For instance, AlphaGo’s reward is winning games of Go. When it wins a game, it adjusts itself to do more of what won it the game, and the other way when it loses. It’s less like the reward a human gets from eating ice-cream, and more like the feedback a coach might give you on your tennis swing that lets you adjust and make better shots. We have no reason to suspect there’s any human analogue to feeling good.