Time Consistent Discounting
Date
2011
Authors
Lattimore, Tor
Hutter, Marcus
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Publisher
Springer
Abstract
A possibly immortal agent tries to maximise its summed discounted rewards over time, where discounting is used to avoid infinite utilities and encourage the agent to value current rewards more than future ones. Some commonly used discount functions lead to time-inconsistent behavior where the agent changes its plan over time. These inconsistencies can lead to very poor behavior. We generalise the usual discounted utility model to one where the discount function changes with the age of the agent. We then give a simple characterisation of time-(in)consistent discount functions and show the existence of a rational policy for an agent that knows its discount function is time-inconsistent.
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Keywords
Keywords: Characterisation; Discounted reward; general discounting; Rational agents; sequential decision theory; Time consistency; Utility model; Algorithms; Biographies; Decision theory; Game theory; Rational functions game theory; general discounting; Rational agents; sequential decision theory; time-consistency
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Source
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence 6925
Type
Conference paper
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Open Access
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Restricted until
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