Stone to Silicon

Artificial intelligence · 1988

Temporal-difference learning

Sutton's method learns predictions from the gap between successive guesses.

Richard Sutton formalised temporal-difference learning, updating value estimates from later estimates rather than waiting for final outcomes. It became a pillar of reinforcement learning and is linked to dopamine signals in the brain.

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What it led to 2

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Training compute of notable AI models Source: Epoch AI, Notable AI Models (CC BY 4.0)

Computation per constant dollar, 1850-2006 Latest: 7.3B million units of computer power per 2006 $ (2003) Source: Nordhaus 2007, Two Centuries of Productivity Growth in Computing, J. Econ. Hist. 67(1), Table 6