AI engineering glossary · Reinforcement learning
What is reward function?
Reward function: The rule that maps a situation, a choice, and often the next situation to a numeric score. It is how the designer states the goal. A poorly specified rule can lead the learner to exploit loopholes instead of solving the intended task.
Reward function: an example
For a warehouse robot: +5 for delivering a parcel, -0.01 per move and -2 for bumping into a shelf.
Related terms
More Reinforcement learning terms
- Reward shaping
- Sample efficiency
- SARSA
- Score function estimator
- Self-play
- Sim-to-real transfer
- Softmax exploration
- Sparse reward
Where you learn it
Reward function is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.