CS8691 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

2 MARKS QUESTION BANK

UNIT I INTRODUCTION

Introduction–Definition – Future of Artificial Intelligence – Characteristics of Intelligent Agents–

Typical Intelligent Agents – Problem Solving Approach to Typical AI problems.

1. Define Artificial Intelligence (AI). [Nov/Dec 2008] [Apr/May 2008]

Artificial intelligence is the branch of computer science that deals with
the automation of intelligent behavior. AI gives basis for developing
human like programs which can be useful to solve real life problems and
thereby become useful to mankind.

2. Differentiate between Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence.

I INTELLIGENCE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

It is a natural process. I is programmed by humans.

I it is actually hereditary. It is not hereditary.

Knowledge is required for intelligence. KB and electricity are required to
generate output.
N o human is an expert.We may get better Expert systems are made which
solutions from other humans. aggregate many person’s
experience and ideas.

3. Is AI a science, or is it engineering? Or neither or both? Explain.

 Artificial Intelligence is most certainly a science. But it would be nothing with
engineering. Computer Scientists need somewhere to place their programs, such as
computers, servers, robots, cars, etc.
 But without engineers they would have no outlet to test their Artificial Intelligence
on.
 Science and Engineering go hand in hand, they both benefit each other. While the
engineers build the machines, the scientists are writing code for their AI.

4. Explain why problem formulation must follow goal formulation.

 In goal formulation, we decide which aspects of the world we are interested in,
and which can be ignored or abstracted away.
 Then in problem formulation we decide how to manipulate the important aspects
(and ignore the others).
 If we did problem formulation first we would not know what to include and what
to leave out.
 That said, it can happen that there is a cycle of iterations between goal
formulation, problem formulation, and problem solving until one arrives at a
sufficiently useful and efficient solution.

5. What is meant by Turing test?

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 A Turing Test is a method of inquiry in artificial intelligence (AI) for determining whether or not
a computer is capable of thinking like a human being. The test is named after Alan Turing.

 To conduct this test we need two people and one machine. One person will be an interrogator
(i.e.) questioner, will be asking questions to one person and one machine. Three of them will be in
a separate room. Interrogator knows them just as A and B. so it has to identify which is the person
and machine. The goal of the machine is to make Interrogator believe that it is the person’s
answer. If machine succeeds by fooling Interrogator, the machine acts like a human. Programming
a computer to pass Turing test is very difficult.

6.What are the capabilities, computer should possess to pass Turing test?

o natural language processing –to enable it to communicate successfully in English

o knowledge representation - to store what it knows or hears
o automated reasoning - to use the stored information to answer questions and to draw new
conclusions
o machine learning - to adapt to new circumstances and to detect and extrapolate patterns.

7. What are the functionalities of an agent function?

 The agent function is a mathematical function that maps a sequence of perceptions into
action.
 The function is implemented as the agent program.
 An agent’s behavior is described by the agent function that maps any given percept
sequence to an action.
AGENT FUNCTION - An abstract mathematical description
AGENT PROGRAM - A concrete implementation, running on the agent Architecture.
8. What are the four components to define a problem? Define them.

9. Give the structure of an agent in an environment.

Agent interacts with environment through sensors and actuators. An Agent is

anything that can be viewed as perceiving (i.e.) understanding its environment
through sensors and acting upon that environment through actuators.

10. Define ideal rational agents.

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In ideal rational agent is the one, which is capable of doing expected actions to maximize its
performance measure, on the basis of -
Its percept sequence
Its built-in knowledge base

11. Why are condition-action rules important in the design of an agent?

 Rules are used to represent relationships. Rule-based knowledge representation employs IF

condition (premise antecedent) THEN action statements. (goal consequent)
 For example: IF the heating element glows AND the bread is always dark THEN the toaster
thermostat is broken
 When the problem situation matches the IF part of a rule, the action specified by the THEN
part of the rule is performed.

12. List down the characteristics of intelligent agent.

The IA must learn and improve through interaction with the environment.
The IA must adapt online and in the real time situation.
The IA must accommodate new problem-solving rules incrementally.
The IA must have memory which must exhibit storage and retrieval
capabilities.

13. What is the use of online search agents in unknown environment?

Online search agents operate by interleaving computation and action: first it takes an action, and then
it observes the environment and computes the next action. Online search is a good idea in dynamic or
semi dynamic domains and stochastic domains. Online search is a necessary idea for an exploration
problem, where the states and actions are unknown to the agent.

14. Define operationalization.

The process of creating a formal description of a problem using the knowledge about the problem, so
as to create a program for solving a problem is called as operationalization.

15. What can AI do today?

a. Autonomous Planning and Scheduling

b. Game Planning

c. Autonomous Control

d. Diagnosis

e. Logistics Planning

f. Robotics
16. List the major components in problem formulation in AI.

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 The four components are:

a. Initial state.

b. State Space

c. Goal Test and

d. Path Cost

17. What is a task environment? How it is specified?

Task environments are essentially the "problems" to which rational Agents are the
"solutions" . A Task environment is specified using PEAS (Performance, Environment,
Actuators, and Sensors) description.
Performance measure – evaluates the behaviour of the agent in an environment.
Environment - Set of students testing Agency
Actuators - Display exercises suggestions, corrections.
Sensors - Keyboard entry

18. List the properties of task environments.

 Fully observable vs. partially observable.
 Deterministic vs. stochastic.
 Episodic vs sequential
 Static vs dynamic.
 Discrete vs. continuous.
 Single agent vs. multiagent.

19. What are the four different kinds of agent programs?

a. Simple reflex agents;

b. Model-based reflex agents;
c. Goal-based agents; and
d. Utility-based agents

20. What are utility based agents?

Goals alone are not really enough to generate high-quality behavior in most
environments. For example, there are many action sequences that will get the
taxi to its destination (thereby achieving the goal) but some are quicker, safer,
more reliable, or cheaper than others. A utility function maps a state (or a
sequence of states) onto a real number, which describes the associated degree
of happiness.
21. Give the general model of learning agent?

Learning agent model has 4 components –

Learning element.
Performance element.
Critic
Problem Generator.

22. What is meant by robotic agent?

A machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts of a

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 human being. It can do the task efficiently and repeatedly without fault. It works on
the basis of a program feeder to it; it can have previously stored knowledge from
environment through its sensors. It acts with the help of actuators.

23. Define rational agent?

A rational agent is one that does the right thing. Here right thing is one that
will cause agent to be more successful. That leaves us with the problem of
deciding how and when to evaluate the agent’s success.

24. What is the role of agent program?

o Agent program is important and central part of agent system. It drives

the agent, which means that it analyzes date and provides probable
actions agent could take
o An agent program is internally implemented as agent function.
o An agent program takes input as the current percept from the sensor
and returns an action to the effectors

25. State the concept of rationality?

Rationality is the capacity to generate maximally successful behavior given the

available information. Rationality also indicates the capacity to compute the perfectly
rational decision given the initially available information. The capacity to select the optimal
combination of computation – sequence plus the action, under the constraint that the action
must be selected by the computation is also rationality. Perfect rationality constraints an
agent’s actions to provide the maximum expectations of success given the information
available.

26. Define basic agent program?

 The basic agent program is a concrete implementation of the agent function which runs on the
agent architecture. Agent program puts bound on the length of percent sequence and
considers only required percept sequences. Agent program implements the functions of
percept sequence and action which are external characteristics of the agent.
 Agent program takes input as the current percept from the sensor and return an action to the
effectors (Actuators)

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 UNIT II PROBLEM SOLVING METHODS

Problem solving Methods - Search Strategies- Uninformed - Informed - Heuristics - Local Search
Algorithms and Optimization Problems - Searching with Partial Observations - Constraint
Satisfaction Problems – Constraint Propagation - Backtracking Search - Game Playing - Optimal
Decisions in Games – Alpha - Beta Pruning - Stochastic Games

1. How will you measure the problem-solving performance?

Problem solving performance is measured with 4 factors.
 Completeness - Does the algorithm (solving procedure) surely finds solution if really the solution
exists.
Optimality – If multiple solutions exits then do the algorithm returns optimal amongst them.
 Time requirement.
 Space requirement.

2. What is the application of BFS?

It is simple search strategy, which is complete i.e. it surely gives solution if solution exists. If
the depth of search tree is small then BFS is the best choice. It is useful in tree as well as in
graph search.

3. State on which basis search algorithms are chosen?/ State on what basis search algorithms are
chosen?
Search algorithms are chosen depending on two components.
1)How is the state space – That is, state space is tree structured or graph? Critical factor for state
space is what is branching factor and depth level of that tree or graph.
2)What is the performance of the search strategy? A complete, optimal search strategy with better
time and space requirement is critical factor in performance of search strategy.

4. Evaluate performance of problem-solving method based on depth-first search algorithm?

DFS algorithm performance measurement is done with four ways –

 Completeness – It is complete (guarantees solution)

 Optimality – it is not optimal.

 Time complexity – It’s time complexity is O (b).

 Space complexity – its space complexity is O (b d+1)

5. What are the four components to define a problem? Define them?

The four components to define a problem are,

1) Initial state – it is the state in which agent starts in.

2) A description of possible actions – it is the description of possible actions which are

available to the agent.

3) The goal test – it is the test that determines whether a given state is goal (final) state.

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 4) A path cost function – it is the function that assigns a numeric cost (value) to each
path. The problem-solving agent is expected to choose a cost function that reflects
its own performance measure.

6. Define the bi-directed search?

As the name suggests bi-directional that is two directional searches are made in this searching technique. One
is the forward search which starts from initial state and the other is the backward search which starts from goal
state. The two searches stop when both the search meet in the middle.

7. Why problem formulation must follow goal formulation?( May ask in Unit 1 too)
Goal based agent is the one which solves the problem. Therefore, while formulating problem one need to only
consider what is the goal to be achieved so that problem formulation is done accordingly. Hence problem
formulation must follow goal formulation.

8. List the criteria to measure the performance of search strategies?/ Mention how the search strategies
are evaluated?
Search strategies are evaluated on following four criteria

a. completeness: the search strategy always finds a solution, if one exits?

b. Time complexity: how much time the search strategy takes to complete?

c. Space complexity: how much memory consumption search strategy has?

d. Optimality: the search strategy finds a highest solution.

9. Define admissible and consistent heuristics?

 Admissible heuristics: a heuristic is admissible if the estimated cost is never more than actual cost
from the current node to the goal node.

 Consistent heuristics: A heuristic is consistent if the cost from the current node to a successor node
plus the estimated cost from the successor node to the goal is less than or equal to estimated cost from
the current node to the goal.

10. List some of the uninformed search techniques?

The uninformed search strategies are those that do not take into account the location of the goal. That is these
algorithms ignore where they are going until they find a goal and report success. The three most widely used
uninformed search strategies are
1.depth-first search-it expands the deepest unexpanded node
2.breadth-first search-it expands shallowest unexpanded node
3.lowest -cost-first search (uniform cost search)- it expands the lowest cost node
4. Depth limited search
5. Iterative Deeping Search

11. When is the class of problem said to be intractable?

 The problems whose algorithm takes an unreasonably large amount of resources (time and / or space)
are called intractable.
 For example – TSP
 Given set of ‘N’ points, one should find shortest tour which connects all of them. Algorithm will
consider all N! Orderings, i.e. consider n = 16  16! > 250 which is impractical for any computer?

12. Why does one go for heuristics search?/ What is the power of heuristic search?
 Heuristic search uses problem specific knowledge while searching in state space.
 This helps to improve average search performance.
 They use evaluation functions which denote relative desirability (goodness) of a
expanding node set. This makes the search more efficient and faster.

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  One should go for heuristic search because it has power to solve large, hard problems in
affordable times.

13. What are the advantages of heuristic function?

 Heuristics function ranks alternative paths in various search algorithms, at each branching step, based
on the available information, so that a better path is chosen.
 The main advantage of heuristic function is that it guides for which state to explore now, while
searching.
 It makes use of problem specific knowledge like constraints to check the goodness of a state to be
explained. This drastically reduces the required searching time.

14. State the reason when hill climbing often gets stuck?
 Local maxima are the state where hill climbing algorithm is sure to get struck.
 Local maxima are the peak that is higher than each of its neighbor states, but lower than the global
maximum. So we have missed the better state here. All the search procedure turns out to be wasted
here. It is like a dead end.

15. When a heuristic function h is said to be admissible? Give an admissible heuristic function for TSP ?
Admissible heuristic function is that function which never over estimates the cost to reach the goal state. It
means that h(n) gives true cost to reach the goal state ‘n’.
The admissible heuristic for TSP is
a. Minimum spanning tree.
b. Minimum assignment problem.

16. What do you mean by local maxima with respect to search technique?

Local maximum is the peak that is higher than each of its neighbor states, but lowers than the global maximum
i.e. a local maximum is a tiny hill on the surface whose peak is not as high as the main peak (which is a
optimal solution). Hill climbing fails to find optimum solution when it encounters local maxima. Any small
move, from here also makes things worse (temporarily). At local maxima all the search procedure turns out to
be wasted here. It is like a dead end.

17. How can we avoid ridge and plateau in hill climbing?

Ridge and plateau in hill climbing can be avoided using methods like backtracking, making big
jumps. Backtracking and making big jumps help to avoid plateau,

18. What is CSP?

 CSP are problems whose state and goal test conform to a standard structure and very simple
representation. CSPs are defined using set of variables and a set of constraints on those variables. The
variables have some allowed values from specified domain. For example – Graph coloring problem.
 A Constraint Satisfaction problem (or CSP) is defined by a set of variables X1, X2,…..,Xn, and a set
of constraints, C1,C2,…..,Cm. Each variable Xi has a nonempty domain Di of possible values.
 Each constraint Ci involves some subset of the variables and specifies the allowable
combinations of values for that subset.
 A state of the problem is defined by an assignment of values to some or all of the variables,
{Xi = vi,Xj=vj,…} A solution to a CSP is a complete assignment that satisfies all the constraints.

19. How can minimax also be extended for game of chance?

 In a game of chance, we can add extra level of chance nodes in game search tree. These nodes have
successors which are the outcomes of random element.
 The minimax algorithm uses probability P attached with chance node d i based on this value. Successor
function S(N,di) give moves from position N for outcome di

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20. What is a optimal solution?

A solution to a problem is an action sequence that leads from the initial state
to the goal state. A solution quality is measured by the path cost function and
an optimal solution has the lowest path cost among all solutions.
21. How does the operation of an off-line search differ from that of an
on-line search?[Nov/Dec 2008]

Offline search: They compute a complete solution before setting foot in the
real world, and then execute the solution without recourse to their percepts.

Online search: Agents operate by interleaving computation and action: first it

takes an action, and then it observes the environment and computes the next
action.
22. Will Breadth-First Search always finds the minimal solution.Why?[April/May
2018]

Yes,It starts from the root node,explores the neighboring nodes first and moves towards
the next level neighbors,This method provides shortest path to the solution.

23. What is the use of online search agents in unknown environment?[Nov/Dec 2007]
Online search agents operate by interleaving computation and action: first it takes an
action, and then it observes the environment and computes the next action. Online
search is a good idea in dynamic or semi dynamic domains and stochastic domains.
Online search is a necessary idea for an exploration problem, where the states and
actions are unknown to the agent.

24. Formally define Game as a kind of search problems.[May/Jun 2009]

Consider of a 3x3 board with eight numbered tiles and a blank space. A tile adjacent
to the blank space can slide into the space. The object is to reach a specified goal
state.
25. What are optimization problems?
In optimization problems, the aim is to find the best state according to an
objective function the optimization problem is then: Find values of the
variables that minimize or maximize the objective function while satisfying
the constraints.
26. What’s the difference between a world state, a state description, and a search node?
Why is this distinction useful?
A world state is what the world looks like, while a state description tells us
about the state in every detail, and a search node is a data representation of the
search. So the world state is the state itself, the state description is information
on it, and the search node is the search data.
27. Define Monotonicity
Monotonicity (consistency): In search tree any path from the root, the f-cost never
decreases. This condition is true for almost all admissible heuristics. A heuristic which
satisfies this property is called monotonicity.

28. What is a ridge?[May/June 2016] Ridges are a challenging problem for hill climbers that optimize
in continuous spaces.Because hill climbers only adjust one element in the vector at a time,each step
will move in an axis-aligned direction.

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29. Write Generate and Test algorithm.
o •Generate a possible solution. For some problems this means
generating a particular point in the problem space. For others, it means
generating a path from a start state.
o Test to see if this is actually a solution by comparing the chosen point
or the end point of the chosen path to the set of acceptable goal states.
o If a solution has been found, quit otherwise return step1

30. What is the difference between Simple Hill Generate and Test algorithm
Climbing [ MAY / JUNE 2016 ]

The key difference between Simple Hill Climbing and Generate and Test
algorithm is the use of an evaluation function as a way to inject task-specific
knowledge into the control process.
31. What is A* search?

A * search is the most widely-known form of best-first search. It evaluates the

nodes by combining g(n),the cost to reach the node, and h(n),the cost to get
from the node to the goal:
f (n) = g(n) + h(n)

Where f (n) = estimated cost of the cheapest solution through n.

g (n) is the path cost from the start node to node n.
h (n) = heuristic function
A * search is both complete and optimal.
32. How much knowledge would be required by a perfect program for the problem
of playing chess?Assume that unlimited computing power is available.[May/June
2016]
The rules for determining legal moves and some simple control mechanism that
implements an appropriate search procedure. Additional knowledge about such things
as good strategy and tactics could of course help considerably to constrain the search
and speed up the execution of the program.

33. What is alpha-beta pruning?[May/June 2016][Nov/Dec 2016]

Alpha - Beta Pruning is a search algorithm that seeks to decrease the number of nodes
that are evaluated by the minmax algorithm in its search tree. When applied to a
standard minmax tree, it returns the same move as minmax would, but the final
decision.t prunes away branches that cannot possibly influence
34. How can we avoid ridge and plateau in hill climbing? (Nov/Dec 12)
 Ridges result in sequence of local maxima that is very difficult for greedy
algorithm to navigate.
 A plateau is an area to the state space landscape where the evaluation function is
flat. It can be a flat local maximum, from which no uphill exit exists, or a
shoulder, from which it is possible to make progress.

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  In case of plateau a sideways move is allowed in hope that the plateau is really a
shoulder. If a sideways move is always allowed an infinite loop might occur. So a
limit is placed on the number of consecutive sideways moves allowed.

35. Define Simulated annealing.

Simulated annealing (SA) is a probabilistic technique for approximating the global

optimum of a given function. Specifically, it is a meta heuristic to approximate global
optimization in a large search space for an optimization problem. It is often used when
the search space is discrete (e.g., the traveling salesman problem). For problems
where finding an approximate global optimum is more important than finding a
precise local optimum in a fixed amount of time.
36. Define Local beam search.
Local beam search keeps track of k states rather than just one. It begins with k
randomly generated states. At each step, all the successors of all ‘k’ states are
generated. If anyone is a goal, the algorithm halts. Otherwise it selects the ‘k’ best
successors from the complete list and repeats.
37. Define stochastic beam search.
Stochastic beam search chooses ‘k’ successors at random, with the probability of
choosing a given successor being an increasing function of its value. It bears some
resemblance to the process of natural selection, whereby the successors of a state
populate the next generation according to its value.
38. Give a classification of CSP with respect to constraints.
The classification of CSP with respect to constraints are as follows
1. Unary constraint CSP restricts the value of a single variable.
2. Binary constraint CSP relates two variables
3. Global constraint CSP involves an arbitrary number of variables.

4.
39. List out the types of assignment in CSP problem and explain each.
a. Consistent or legal assignment an assignment that does not violate any constraints
b. Complete assignment is one in which every variable is assigned and a solution
to a CSP is consistent.
c. Partial assignment assigns values to only some of the variables.

40. Define node consistency, arc consistency and path consistency.

 Node consistency means that each individual variable by itself is consistent;
 Path consistency means a pair of adjacent variables can always be extended to a third
 neighbouring variable.
 Arc consistency refers to a directed arc in the constraint graph, the arc is consistent, if for
every value of ‘x’ there is some value ‘y’ that is consistent with ‘x’.

41. What are the various heuristics used for variable ordering and value
ordering in CSP? The heuristics available for variable ordering are
a. Minimum remaining values (MRV) heuristic
b. Degree heuristic
The heuristics available for value ordering are
c. Least-constraining value heuristic

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42. Define quiescence problem.

Quiescence search is an algorithm typically used to extend search at

unstable nodes in minimax game trees in game-playing computer programs. It
is an extension of the evaluation function to defer evaluation until the position
is stable enough to be evaluated statically, that is, without considering the
history of the position or future moves from the position. It mitigates the effect
of the horizon problem faced by AI engines for various games like chess and
Go.
43. Define Genetic algorithm.
Genetic algorithm is a variant of stochastic beam search in which successor states are generated by
combining two parent states rather than by modifying a single state. New states are generated by
mutation and crossover which combines pairs of states from the population.

44. Differentiate Uninformed Search (Blind search) and Informed Search(Heuristic Search) strategies.

45. List down the characteristics of production system.

 Monotonic Production System: the application of a rule never prevents the
later application of another rule that could also have been applied at the time
the first rule was selected.
 Non-Monotonic Production system:
 Partially commutative Production system: property that if application of a
particular sequence of rules transforms state x to state y, then permutation of
those rules allowable, also transforms state x into state y.
 Commutative Production system: A Commutative production system is a
production system that is both monotonic and partially commutative.

46. What is the problem faced by hill-climbing search?

Hill-climbing often get stuck for the following reasons:
 Local maxima – A local maxima is a peak that is higher than each of its
neighboring states, but lower than the local maximum. Hill climbing algorithm
that reach the vicinity of a local maximum will be drawn upwards towards the
peak, but will then be stuck with nowhere else to go.
 Ridges – Ridges result in a sequence of local maxima that is very difficult for
greedy algorithms to navigate.
 Plateau: a plateau is an area of state space landscape where the evaluation
function is flat. A hill-climbing search might be unable to find its way off the
plateau.

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 Example: hSLD(n) (never overestimates the actual road distance)
47.Define the effect of heuristics accuracy on performance (Nov/Dec 2013)
A heuristic h(n) is admissible if for every node n,
h (n) = h*(n), where h*(n) is the true cost to reach the goal state from n.
An admissible heuristic never overestimates the cost to reach the goal, i.e., it is optimistic

47. Specify the complexity of expectiminimax.

Complexity of expectiminimax
• The expectiminimax considers all the possible diceroll sequences
– It takes O(bmnm)
where n is the number of distinct rolls
– Whereas, minimax takes O(bm)
• Problems
– The extra cost compared to minimax is very high
– Alpha-beta pruning is more difficult to apply
48. Differentiate greedy search & A* search.

49. List some properties of SMA* search.

 Proceeds life A*,expands best leaf until memory is full.
 Cannot add new node without dropping an old one. (always drops worst one)
Expands the best leaf and deletes the worst leaf.
 If all have same f-value-selects same node for expansion and deletion.
 SMA* is complete if  any reachable solution.

50. Define the properties of genetic algorithm

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Once the initial generation is created, the algorithm evolve the generation using following operators
1) Selection Operator: The idea is to give preference to the individuals with good fitness scores and
allow them to pass there genes to the successive generations.
2) Crossover Operator: This represents mating between individuals. Two individuals are selected using
selection operator and crossover sites are chosen randomly. 
Mutation Operator: The key idea is to insert random genes in offspring to maintain the diversity in
population to avoid the premature convergence.

UNIT III KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION

First Order Predicate Logic – Prolog Programming – Unification – Forward Chaining-
Backward Chaining – Resolution – Knowledge Representation - Ontological
Engineering-Categories and Objects – Events - Mental Events and Mental Objects -
Reasoning Systems for Categories - Reasoning with Default Information

1. What are the limitations in using propositional logic to represent the

knowledge base?
Propositional logic has following limitations to represent the knowledge base.

i.It has limited expressive power.

ii.It cannot directly represent properties of individuals or relations between

individuals.

iii.Generalizations, patterns, regularities cannot easily be represented.

iv.Many rules (axioms) are requested to write so as to allow inference.

2. Name two standard quantifiers

 The two standard quantifier are universal quantifiers and existential
quantifier.
 They are used for expressing properties of entire collection of objects
rather just a single object.
Eg. x Happy(x) means that “if the universe of discourse is people, then everyone is happy”.

x Happy(x) means that “if the universe of discourse is people, then this means that there is
at-least one happy person.”

3. What is the purpose of unification?

It is for finding substitutions for inference rules, which can make different
logical expression to look identical. It helps to match to logical expressions.
Therefore it is used in many algorithm in first order logic

4. What is ontological commitment (what exists in the world) of first order logic? Represent
thesentence “Brothers are siblings” in first order logic?

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 Ontological commitment means what assumptions language makes about the nature if reality.
Representation of “Brothers are siblings” in first order logic is

 x, y [Brother (x, y) Siblings (x, y)]

5. Differentiate between propositional and first order predicate logic?

6. What factors justify whether the reasoning is to be done in forward or

backward reasoning?
Following factors justify whether the reasoning is to be done in forward or backward
reasoning:

a. possible to begin with the start state or goal state?

b. Is there a need to justify the reasoning?

c. What kind of events trigger the problem - solving?

d. In which direction is the branching factor greatest? One should go in the direction with
lower branching factor?

7. Represent the following sentence in predicate form:

“All the children like sweets”

x child(x)  sweet(y)  likes (x,y).

8. what is Skolemization?

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  It is the process of removing existential quantifier by elimination. It converts a sentence
with existential quantifier into a sentence without existential quantifier such that the
first sentence is satisfiable if and only if the second is.
 For eliminating an existential quantifier each occurrence of its variable is replaced by a
skolem function whose argument are the variables of universal quantifier whose
argument are the variables of universal quantifier whose scope includes the scope of
existential quantifier.

9. Define the first order definite clause?

 They are disjunctions of literals of which exactly one is positive.

 A definite clause is either atomic sentence or is an implication whose antecedents (left
hand side clause) is a conjunction of positive literals and consequent (right hand side
clause) is a single positive literal.

For example:

Princess (x)  Beautiful (x)  Goodhearted(x)

Princess(x)

Beautiful(x)

10. Write the generalized Modus ponens Rule?

1) Modus ponens :

If the sentence P and P Q are known to be true, then modus ponens lets us infer Q For
example : if we have statement , “ If it is raining then the ground will be wet” and “It is raining”.
If P denotes “It is raining” and Q is “The ground is wet” then the first expression becomes P Q.
Because if it is indeed now raining (P is true), our set of axioms becomes,

PQ

Through an application of modus ponens, the fact that “The ground is wet” (Q)
may be added to the set of true expressions.

2) The generalized modus ponens :

For atomic sentences Pi , P'i and q, where there is a substitution Q such that
SUBST (,P'i) = SUBST (,P'i) ,

For all i ,

P'1, P'2 , …… P'n , (P1  P2  ….. Pn  q)

SUBST (, q)

There is n+ 1 premise to this rule: The ‘n’ atomic sentences P' i and the one implication. The
conclusion is the result applying the substitution  to the consequent q.

11. Define atomic sentence and complex sentence?

1. An atomic sentence is formed from a predicate symbol followed by a
parenthesized list of terms. For example: Stepsister (Cindrella, Drizella)

2. Atomic sentences can have complex terms as the arguments. For example: Married (Father
(Cindrella), Mother (Drizella))

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 3. Atomic sentences are also called atomic expressions, atoms or propositions. For example:
Equal (plus (two, three), five) is an atomic sentence.
Complex sentences

i) Atomic sentences can be connected to each other to form complex sentence. Logical
connectives, , , ,  can be used to connect atomic sentences. For example:

 Princess (Drizella)  Princess (Cindrella)

ii) Various sentences in first order logic formed using connectives:
1) If S is a sentence, then so its negation,  S.
2) If S1, and S2 are sentences, then so their conjunction, S1  S2.
3) If S1, and S2 are sentences, then so their disjunction, S1  S2.
4) If S1, and S2 are sentences, then so their implication, S1S2.
5) If S1, and S2 are sentences, then so their equivalence, S 1  S2.

12. What is Unification?

1) It is the process of finding substitutions for lifted inference rules, which can make
different logical expression to look similar (identical).

2) Unification is a procedure for determining substitutions needed to make two first

order logic expressions match.

3) Unification is important component of all first order logic inference algorithms.

3) The unification algorithm takes two sentences and returns a unifier for them, if one
exists.

13. Differentiate forward chaining and backward chaining?

14. Define metarules?

The rules that determine the conflict resolution strategy are called meta rules. Meta rules
define knowledge about how the system will work. For example, meta rules may define that

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 knowledge from expert1 is to be trusted more than knowledge from expert 2. Meta rules are
treated by the system like normal rules but are they are given higher priority.

15. . Explain following term with reference to prolog programming language

 Clauses: clauses are the structure elements of the program. A prolog programmer
develops a program by writing a collection of clauses in a text file. The programmer the
uses the consult command ,specifying the name of the text file, to load the process into
the prolog environment.
 The two types of clauses – facts and rules.
 Facts – a fact is an atom or structure followed by fullstop .examples of valid prolog
syntax defining facts are :cold , male(homer).and father(homer,bart)
 Rules: a rule consist of a head and body . the head and body are separated by a :- and
followed by a fullstop. If the body of a clause id true then the head of the clause is true.
Examples of valid prolog syntax for defining rules are: bigger(X,Y):-X>Y.and
parents(F,M,C):-father (F,C),mother(M,C).

16. explain following term with refernce to prolog programming language : predicates

Each predicate has a name and zero or more arguments .the predicate name is a prolog atom .
each argument is an arbitrary prolog term. A predicate with pred and n arguments is denoted
by pred/N, which is called a predicate indicator. A predicate is defined by a collection of
clauses.

17. explain the following term with reference to prolog programming language : domains

Domains : the argument to the predicates must belong to know prolog domains. A domain can
be a standard domain, or it can be one you declare in the domain section. The two types of
process- facts and rules.

18. define ontological engineering?

It is a process of representing the abstract concepts like actions,time which are related to the real world
domains. This process is complex and lengthy because in real world objects have many different
characteristics with various values which can differ over time. In such cases ontological engineering
generalizes the objects having similar characteristics.

19. Differentiate general purpose ontology from special purpose ontology.

 Special purpose ontology considers some basics facts about the world in such a
way tat they may notbe represented in generalized manner. It provides domain
specific axioms. Whereas the general purpose ontology is applicable to any special
purpose domain with the addiction of domain specific axioms, it tries to represent
real world abstract concepts in more generic manner, so as to cover larger
20. domains.
 A general purpose ontology unifies and do reasoning for sufficiently large
domains and different areas, where as special purpose ontology is restricted to
specific problem domain.
27. How TELL and ASK are used in first-order logic?
The TELL and ASK functions used to inform and interrogate a knowledge base are the
more primitive STORE and FETCH functions. STORE (Ss) stores a sentence s into the
knowledge base and FETCH (^) returns all unifiers such that the query q unifies with
some sentence in the knowledge base.

28. Define Declarative and procedural knowledge.

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 Declarative knowledge involves knowing THAT something is the case - that J is the
tenth letter of the alphabet, that Paris is the capital of France. Declarative knowledge is
conscious; it can often be verbalized. Metalinguistic knowledge, or knowledge about a
linguistic form, is declarative knowledge.

Procedural knowledge involves knowing HOW to do something - ride a bike, for

example. We may not be able to explain how we do it. Procedural knowledge involves
implicit learning, which a learner may not be aware of, and may involve being able to
use a particular form to understand or produce language without necessarily being able
to explain it.

29. With an example, show objects, properties functions and relations. Example “EVIL KING
JOHN BROTHER OF RICHARD RULED ENGLAND IN 1200”
Objects : John, Richard, England, 1200
Relation : Ruled
Properties : Evil, King
Functions : BROTHER OF
30. What factors justify whether the reasoning is to be done in forward or
backward reasoning? [Nov/Dec 2011]

Selection of forward reasoning or backward reasoning depends on which direction offers

less branching factor and justifies its reasoning process to the user. Most of the search
techniques can be used to search either forward or backward. One exception is the means-
ends analysis technique which proceeds by reducing differences between current and goal
states, sometimes reasoning forward and sometimes backward.
31. Define Universal Instantiation

The rule of Universal Instantiation is defined as any sentence can be obtained by

substituting a ground term (a term without variables) for the variable. To write out the
inference rule formally, the notion of substitutions is introduced.

32. Define Existential Instantiation

In the rule for Existential Instantiation, the variable is replaced by a single new
constant symbol. The formal statement is as follows: for any sentence α, variable v,
and constant symbol k that does not appear elsewhere in the knowledge base

33.

34.

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 35. What are the four parts of knowledge in first-order logic?
The four parts of knowledge in first-order logic are,

a. A set of clauses known as set of support;

b. A set of usable axioms that are outside the set of support;

c. A set of equations known as rewrites or demodulators;

d. A set of parameters and clause that defines the control strategy

36. Define knowledge base
Knowledge base is the central component of knowledge base agent and it is described as a set of
representations of facts and rules about the world.
37. Write the rules to convert predicate logic into clausal form
 Eliminate by, a  b = ~a v b
 Reduce the scope of ~
 Change variable names such that, each quantifier has a unique name.
 Move all the quantifiers to the left of the formula without changing their relative
order.
 Eliminate existential quantifiers
 Drop the Prefix
 Convert into conjunction of disjuncts
 Separate each conjunct into a new clause.

38. Define Event Calculus.

The event calculus is a logical language for representing and reasoning about events and their
effects. The event calculus represents the effects of actions on fluents. However, events can also be
external to the system. In the event calculus, one can specify the value of fluents

39. What are logical formulae and logical deduction?

Logical formulae: Logical connectives are used to connect two simpler propositions or representing
a sentence logically. We can create compound propositions with the help of logical connectives.
There are mainly five connectives, which are given as follows:

1. Negation
2. Conjunction
3. Disjunction
4. Implication:
5. Biconditional

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Logical deduction: Deductive reasoning is deducing new information from logically related known
information. It is the form of valid reasoning, which means the argument's conclusion must be true
when the premises are true.

Deductive reasoning is a type of propositional logic in AI, and it requires various rules and facts.

In deductive reasoning, the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion.

Deductive reasoning mostly starts from the general premises to the specific conclusion, which can be
explained as below example.

Example:

Premise-1: All the human eats veggies

Premise-2: Suresh is human.

Conclusion: Suresh eats veggies

UNIT IV SOFTWARE AGENTS

Architecture for Intelligent Agents – Agent communication – Negotiation and
Bargaining – Argumentation among Agents – Trust and Reputation in
Multiagent systems.

1. define intelligent AI agent?

An AI agent is a computer system that is situated in some environment, and that is capable of
anonymous action in this environment in order to meet its design objectives. An intelligent
agent that is capable of flexible autonomous action in order to meet its design objectives,
where flexibility comprises of three aspects namely,

1.Reactivity-intelligent agents are able to perceive their environment and respond in a timely
fashion to changes that occur in it in order to satisfy their prior designed objectives.

2.pro-activeness – intelligent agents are able to exhibit goal-directed behavior by taking the
initiative in order to satisfy their priority designed objectives.

3.social ability – intelligent agents are capable of increasing with other agents (and possibly
humans) in order to satisfy their prior design objectives.

2. What are the types of intelligent agents?

1. Logical based agent
2. Reactive agent
3. Belief Desire Intention Agent
4. Layered architecture agent

3. What is reflex agent in artificial intelligence?

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 In artificial intelligence, a simple reflex agent is a type of intelligent
agent that performs actions based solely on the current situation. The
agent cannot learn or take past percepts into account to modify its
behavior.

4. How many types of agents are there in artificial intelligence?

The four types of agents are Simple reflex, Model based, Goal based
and Utility based agents

5. What is Agent function in AI?

The agent function is a mathematical function that maps a sequence

of perceptions into action. The function is implemented as the agent
program. The part of the agent taking an action is called an actuator.
environment -> sensors - > agent function -> actuators ->
environment.

6. What is an Argument?

Arguments as Chained Inference Rules Arguments as Instances of Schemes

Arguments as Graphs

7. List the Argumentation Scheme.

Argumentation schemes are forms (or categories) of argument,

representing stereotypical ways of drawing inferences from
particular patterns of premises to conclusions in a particular domain
(e.g. reasoning about action). For each scheme, we list: Premises and
Conclusion: A set of critical questions that can be used to scrutinize
the argument by questioning explicit or implicit premises.

8. Compare extensions and Labeling.

EXTENSIONS RESTRICTIONS ON LABELLINGS

complete all labellings

grounded minimal in, or equivalently minimal

out, or equivalently maximal undec

maximal in, or equivalently

preferred maximal

out

semi-stable minimal undec

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 stable empty undec

9. What is a multi-agent systems?

A multi-agent system (MAS or "self-organized system") is a

computerized system composed of multiple interacting intelligent
agents. Multi-agent systems can solve problems that are difficult or
impossible for an individual agent or a monolithic system to solve.

10. What is Reputation good for?

Reputation is one of the elements that allows us to build trust.
Reputation has also a social dimension. It is not only useful for the
individual but also for the society.
11. What is communication agent?

Agent communication is based on message passing, where agents

communicate by formulating and sending individual messages to each
other. The FIPA ACL specifies a standard message language by setting
out the encoding, semantics and pragmatics of the messages.
12. Define automated negotiation.

Automated negotiation is a form of interaction in systems that are

composed of multiple autonomous agents, in which the aim is to reach
agreements through an iterative process of making offers. ... The main
topics in automated negotiation revolve around the design of protocols
and strategies.

13. what is a purely reactive agent?

There can agents who decide their action without referring to earlier history. Their
decision making is purely based on current situation that has nothing to do with the
past situations. Such agents are are termed as purely reactive since they just respond
directly to their environment. Formally the behavior of a purely reactive agent can be
represent by a function action :S->A

14. what are the characteristics of multi agent systems?

1.each agent has just incomplete information and is restricted in is capabilities.
2. the system control is distributed .
3.data is decentralized.
4.computation is asynchronous
5. multi agent environments are typically open ad have no centralized designer.
6.multi agent environments provide an infrastructure specifying communication
and interaction protocols.

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 7. multi agent environments have agents that are autonomous and distributed,
and may be self – interested or cooperative.

15. what is KQML

KQML:

1.the knowledge query and manipulation language (KQML) is a protocol for exchanging information
and knowledge among the agents in a multiagent system. It is the best known ACL developed by the
ARPA for knowledge sharing initiative

2. it is a high-level, message-oriented communication language and protocol for information

exchange, independent of content syntax(KIF,SQL,Prolog…,) and application ontology.

16. What is cooperation?

Cooperation is the practice of working in common with mutually agreed-upon goals and possibly
methods, instead of working separately in competition, and in which the success of one is dependent
and contingent upon the success of another.

For example, I cant play football alone!

Cooperation requires coordination. Cooperative agent uses various protocols for communication like
CONTRACT NET.

17. Give the Diagrammatic Representation of Trust and Reputation Models for Multi Agent
Systems

18. What are the two types of layered architecture

19. Differentiate horizontal and vertical layering

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 20. Give an example of 2 pass layering architecture.

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 UNIT V APPLICATIONS
AI applications – Language Models – Information Retrieval- Information Extraction –
Natural Language Processing – Machine Translation – Speech Recognition – Robot –
Hardware – Perception – Planning – Moving.

1. What is information extraction?[Nov/Dec 2008]

IE is the process of creating database entries by a skimming text and looking for occurrences of a
particular class of object or event and for relationships among those objects and events. E.g. To
extract addresses from web pages with database fields as street, city, state and pin code.
Types of IE system

 Attribute based system

 Relational based system.
2. How machine translation systems are implemented?[Nov/Dec 2007]
If translation is to be done fluently and perfectly then the translator (human or machine)
must read the original text, understood the situation to which it is referred and finds a good
corresponding text in the target language describing same or similar situation. These systems
vary in the level to which they analyze the text.
3. What is N gram analysis?
N-grams of texts are extensively used in text mining and natural language processing
tasks. They are basically a set of co-occuring words within a given window and when
computing the n-grams you typically move one word forward (although you can move
X words forward in more advanced scenarios).

4. What is language model?

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 The language modeling approach to IR directly models that idea: a
document is a good match to a query if the document model is likely to
generate the query, which will in turn happen if the document contains the
query words often.
5. Define Smoothing in Information Retrieval.

The term smoothing refers to the adjustment of the maxi- mum likelihood
estimator of a language model so that it will be more accurate. ... In the
language modeling approach to retrieval, the accuracy of smoothing is
directly related to the retrieval performance.
6. List the various levels of ambiguity.
 Syntactic Ambiguity

 Semanti Ambiguity

 Pragmatic Ambiguity

7. What are the classical IR models?

Boolean Model
Probabilistic Model
Vector Space Model

8. What are the characteristics of representation of a language? Verifiability

Unambiguous
Canonical Form Inference and
Variable Expressiveness

9. what is understanding?

By understanding something we mean that, to transform one representation

into another which indicate the interpretation of ‘something’ which is being
precieved.The newly transformed representation is chosen such that it
corresponds to a set of actions that are available and can be performed with
respect to event.

10. what are terms used in communication?

 Termed used in communication:
 Speech act- this is the action by which agent produces language.The speech here,need
not always be the general talking:But the speech can be emailing,skywriting or any type
of communication established through signs.
 Speaker-An agent that is capable of producing language is called as speaker or hearer or
utterance.
 Word-It is any kind of conventional communicative sign.

11. Define formal language string grammar

 Formal language is defined as set of strings having well defined rules for string formation.
 Grammar-Is a finite set of rules that specifies a language

12. What are over generating and under generating grammar

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 The over generating grammar;The grammar that generates sentences that are not grammatically
valid in English language is called as overgeneraating grammar.

 The undergenerating grammar:The grammar that do not generate sentences that are
grammatically valid in English language is called as undergenerating grammar.
13. What is robotics?

(or)
“ An automatic device that performs functions normally ascribed to humans or machine in the
form of a human.”Another simpler and general definition of robot is : A robot is a programmable
electromechanical system that can gather information from its environment ( sense ) , use this
information and make decisions ( plan ) and follow instructions to do work ( act )

14. What are characteristics of robot?

 Machines – mechanical devices designed for doing work.

 Automatic-operations which are executed without external help.

 Reprogrammable -multifunctional and flexible: not restricted to one job but can be
programmed to perform many jobs (nearly all robot systems contain a reprogrammable
computer).
15. What are advantages of robot?
Advantages:

1.Greater flexibility, re-programmability, kinematics dexterity

2.Greater response time to inputs than humans
3.Improved product quality
4.Maximize capital intensive equipment in multiple work shifts
5.Accidentreduction
6.Reduction of hazardous exposure for human workers
7.Automatic less susceptible to work stoppages

16. What are disadvantages of robot?

Disadvantages:

1.Replacement of human labor

2.Greater unemployment
3.Significant retraining costs for both unemployed and users of new technology
4.Advertised technology does not always disclose some of the hidden disadvantages.
5.Hidden costs because of the associated technology that must be purchase and intergrated into a
functioning cell.Typically ,a functioning cell will cost 3-10 times the cost of the robot.

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 17. Mention basic hardware component of a Robot.
o Power Supply - The working power to the robot is provided by batteries, hydraulic, solar
power, or pneumatic power sources.
o Actuators - Actuators are the energy conversion device used inside a robot. The major
function of actuators is to convert energy into movement.
o Electric motors (DC/AC)- Motors are electromechanical component used for converting
electrical energy into its equivalent mechanical energy. In robots motors are used for
providing rotational movement.
o Sensors - Sensors provide real time information on the task environment. Robots are
equipped with tactile sensor it imitates the mechanical properties of touch receptors of human
fingerprints and a vision sensor is used for computing the depth in the environment.
o Controller - Controller is a part of robot that coordinates all motion of the mechanical
system. It also receives an input from immediate environment through various sensors. The
heart of robot's controller is a microprocessor linked with the input/output and monitoring
device. The command issued by the controller activates the motion control mechanism,
consisting of various controller, actuators and amplifier.

18. What are the stages of FASTUS?

 Tokenization
 Complex-word handling
 Basic-group handling
 Complex-phrase handling
 Structure merging
19. List Various applications of AI

 Knowledge reasoning.
 Planning.
 Machine learning.
 Natural language processing.
 Computer vision.
 Robotics.
 Artificial general intelligence.

21. Define language model.

 language model is a probability distribution over sequences of words. Given such a sequence,

say of length m, it assigns a probability   to the whole sequence.
 The language model provides context to distinguish between words and phrases that sound
similar. For example, in American English, the phrases "recognize speech" and "wreck a nice
beach" sound similar, but mean different things.

22. Define NLP?

Natural Language Processing, or NLP for short, is broadly defined as the automatic manipulation
of natural language, like speech and text, by software.

23. Define Backoff model.

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 Backoff model, in which we start by estimating n-gram counts, but for any particular sequence
that has a low (or zero) count, we back off to (n − 1)-grams.

24. Define linear interpolation smoothing.

 Linear interpolation smoothing is a backoff model that combines trigram, bigram, and
unigram models by linear interpolation. It defines the probability estimate as


 Where, λ3 + λ2 + λ1 = 1. The parameter values λi can be fixed, or they can be trained with an
expectation–maximization algorithm.

25. Characteristics of information retrieval?

 A corpus of documents
 Queries posed in a query language.
 A result set.
 A presentation of the result set.

26. Specify some Information retrieval refinements.

 Case folding
 Stemming
 Synonym
 Meta Data
27. Give page rank algorithm.

28. Specify different approaches of information extraction.

a. Finite-state automata for information extraction

b. Probabilistic models for information extraction
c. Conditional random fields for information extraction
d. Ontology extraction from large corpora
e. Automated template construction
f. Machine reading

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29. Define hidden markov model.In a Hidden Markov Model (HMM), we have an invisible
Markov chain (which we cannot observe), and each state generates in random one out
of k observations, which are visible to us.

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