Multi-task Learning by Pareto Optimality

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are often criticized because they lack the ability to learn more than one task at a time: Multitask Learning is an emerging research area whose aim is to overcome this issue. In this work, we introduce the Pareto Multitask Learning framework as a tool that can show how effectively a DNN is learning a shared representation common to a set of tasks. We also experimentally show that it is possible to extend the optimization process so that a single DNN simultaneously learns how to master two or more Atari games: using a single weight parameter vector, our network is able to obtain sub-optimal results for up to four games.