Barto is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts.
Both scientists are not particularly pleased with how AI companies are applying their life’s work.
Sutton and Barto developed reinforcement learning (RL) during the 1980s, inspired by behaviorist psychology.
Reinforcement learning is one of the three basic machine learning paradigms, along with supervised and unsupervised learning.
OpenAI, Google, and other corporations build their AI platforms with RL.
Barto says that sound engineering practices suggest that developers have a go at mitigate the negative consequences of technology.
Neither OpenAI nor any other AI-focused company is doing that.
For-profit companies only seek money-making opportunities.
Sutton suggested that AGI is just a buzzword for marketing campaigns.
