name: rnd_intrinsic_reward
description: Compute and test Random Network Distillation intrinsic rewards from predictor error against a fixed deterministic target feature map.
RND Intrinsic Reward
Use this skill when implementing or auditing an RND novelty bonus. Do not use it for forward-dynamics curiosity or stochastic target prediction.
Inputs
- Observation vectors as JSON arrays or Python lists of floats.
- Fixed target parameters and trainable predictor parameters.
- Optional normalized observations from a separate normalizer.
Outputs
- Per-observation mean squared prediction errors used as intrinsic rewards.
- Distillation loss over a batch.
- Updated predictor parameters when training is requested.
Workflow
- Keep target parameters immutable for the whole experiment.
- Compute target and predictor features from the same observation batch.
- Use mean squared error across feature dimensions as intrinsic reward.
- Train only predictor parameters on visited observations.
- Validate novelty by comparing trained/visited error with held-out rare-state error.
Validation
Run python tests/test_rnd_intrinsic_reward.py from this skill directory.
Limitations
The included script is a deterministic linear RND proxy for bounded recovery and tests; large Atari recovery still needs a full neural policy/runtime.