Using reinforcement learning to introduce artificial intelligence in the CS curriculum

Abstract

There are many interesting topics in artificial intelligence that would be useful to stimulate student interest at various levels of the computer science curriculum. They can also be used to illustrate some basic concepts of computer science, such as arrays. One such topic is reinforcement learning - teaching a computer program how to play a game or traverse an environment using a system of rewards and punishments. There are reinforcement learning projects that can be used at all levels of the computer science curriculum. This paper describes a few examples of reinforcement learning and how they might be used.