RL Debate: Is RL an adequate theory of biological agency? And is it sufficient to engineer agents that work?

Hi everyone! I’m a postdoc at UC Berkeley running the Sensorimotor AI Journal Club. Last year, I organized an RL Debate Series, where researchers presented and defended different approaches to RL and agency.

We recently had our finale session, featuring all 6 presenters for a final debate and synthesis:

• Watch the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKSPT8-yyBk
• Read the summary write up: https://sensorimotorai.github.io/2026/01/08/rldebatesfinale/

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This semester, we are continuing with a fantastic line up of speakers, covering Brain-inspired Architectures, RL Dogmas (building on the RL Debates), and World Modeling.

See the full schedule here: https://sensorimotorai.github.io/schedule/ (first talk tomorrow Feb 19).

Join us here:

• Email signup form: https://forms.gle/o5DXD4WMdhTgHa4F9
• Slack group: https://join.slack.com/t/sensorimotorai/shared_invite/zt-39l98agsh-Y9U1nsk~DTw7WiPBsZtdAA

Hope to see some of you join the discussions!

https://preview.redd.it/fs0ppndrnbkg1.png?width=2438&format=png&auto=webp&s=6e877ea238ea741bae4284352c087397b60819c1