Real-life reinforcement learning is the topic of building computer systems that learn to improve a measure of performance on a task by interacting with the real world.  It was the topic of a 2004 AAAI Fall Symposium in Washington DC and describes work being

carried out all over the world.

Lab Links:

Autonomous Learning Laboratory: University of Massachusetts

Reinforcement Learning and AI: University of Alberta

Reinforcement Learning at the University of Michigan: University of Michigan

Rutgers Laboratory for Real-Life Reinforcement Learning (RL3): Rutgers University