Predictive learning is a technique of machine learning in which an agent tries to build a model of its environment by trying out different actions in various circumstances. It uses knowledge of the effects its actions appear to have, turning them into planning operators. These allow the agent to act purposefully in its world. Predictive learning is one attempt to learn with a minimum of pre-existing mental structure. It may have been inspired by Piaget's account of how children construct knowledge of the world by interacting with it. Gary Drescher's book 'Made-up Minds' was seminal for the area.
Another more recent predictive learning theory is Jeff Hawkins' memory-prediction framework, which is laid out in his On Intelligence.
Famous quotes containing the word learning:
“Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)