Settling the Reward Hypothesis

Michael Bowling, John D Martin, David Abel, Will Dabney

Abstract: The *reward hypothesis* posits that, "all of what we mean by goals and purposes can be well thought of as maximization of the expected value of the cumulative sum of a received scalar signal (reward)." We aim to fully settle this hypothesis. This will not conclude with a simple affirmation or refutation, but rather specify completely the implicit requirements on goals and purposes under which the hypothesis holds.

Submission Number: 2261