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Chain of Thought Imitation with Procedure Cloning

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Imitation learning through sequence prediction of expert computations

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Open Source
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About Chain of Thought Imitation with Procedure Cloning

Chain of Thought Imitation with Procedure Cloning is a research paper that introduces procedure cloning, a method for imitation learning that goes beyond traditional input-output mapping. Unlike standard supervised imitation learning, which only learns the final action from expert demonstrations, procedure cloning uses supervised sequence prediction to imitate the entire series of expert computations, including intermediate reasoning steps. This allows the agent to learn not only what action to take but also the underlying procedure and rationale. The method is evaluated on navigation, simulated robotic manipulation, and game-playing environments, demonstrating superior generalization to unseen configurations even when the expert's original procedure is infeasible.

Key Features

Learns expert decision-making procedures via supervised sequence prediction
Goes beyond action imitation to capture intermediate reasoning steps
Generalizes to unseen environment configurations
Demonstrated on navigation, robotic manipulation, and game-playing tasks
Does not require access to expert's privileged tools during inference

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Captures both output actions and the reasoning behind them
  • Enables strong generalization to novel environments
  • Works with various types of expert procedures (planning, search, etc.)
  • Does not rely on privileged simulator access during deployment
Cons
  • Requires access to expert's intermediate computations during training
  • May not be applicable to tasks where expert procedures are unavailable or poorly defined
  • Performance depends on quality and granularity of procedure traces
  • Computational cost increases with length of procedure sequences

Best For

Path navigation with planning-based expertsRobot manipulation from demonstrationStrategy game playing with search-based policiesImitation learning in domains with rich procedural demonstrations

FAQ

What is procedure cloning?
Procedure cloning is an imitation learning method that applies supervised sequence prediction to imitate the series of expert computations, learning both the output action and the intermediate reasoning steps.
How does procedure cloning differ from standard imitation learning?
Standard imitation learning learns a direct mapping from observations to actions, while procedure cloning also learns the intermediate computational steps that lead to the action, providing richer insight into expert behavior.
What tasks were used to evaluate procedure cloning?
The method was empirically evaluated on path navigation, simulated robotic manipulation, and game-playing environments.
Does procedure cloning require access to the expert's tools during inference?
No, it only uses the expert's intermediate computations during training; during inference it does not rely on privileged tools such as environment simulators.