Learning Hierarchical Skills from Observation

This paper addresses the problem of learning control skills from observation. In particular, we show how to infer a hierarchical, reactive program that reproduces and explains the observed actions of other agents, specifically the elements that are shared across multiple individuals. We infer these programs using a three-stage process that learns flat unordered rules, combines these rules into a classification hierarchy, and finally translates this structure into a hierarchical reactive program. The resulting program is concise and easy to understand, making it possible to view program induction as a practical technique for knowledge acquisition.