21CB603 - ARTIFICIAL

INTELLIGENCE
Unit I INTRODUCTION

Problems of AI, AI technique, Tic-Tac Toe problem.

Intelligent Agents, Agents & environment, nature of
environment, structure of agents, goal based
agents, utility based agents, learning agents.
Problem Solving, Problems, Problem Space &
search: Defining the problem as state space search,
production system, problem characteristics, issues
in the design of search programs.
 Goals of AI

• To Create Expert Systems − The systems which

exhibit intelligent behavior, learn, demonstrate,
explain, and advice its users.
• To Implement Human Intelligence in Machines −
Creating systems that understand, think, learn,
and behave like humans.
 What is Artificial Intelligence?

• According to the father of Artificial

Intelligence, John McCarthy, it is “The science
and engineering of making intelligent
machines, especially intelligent computer
programs”.
• Artificial Intelligence is a way of making a
computer, a computer-controlled robot, or a
software think intelligently, in the similar
manner the intelligent humans think.
• Intelligent Agent
• An intelligent agent is a goal-directed agent. It perceives its
environment through its sensors using the observations and built-in
knowledge, acts upon the environment through its actuators.
• Rational Agent
• A rational agent is an agent which takes the right action for every
perception. By doing so, it maximizes the performance measure,
which makes an agent be the most successful.
• Note: There is a slight difference between a rational agent and an
intelligent agent.
• Omniscient Agent
• An omniscient agent is an agent which knows the actual outcome of
its action in advance. However, such agents are impossible in the
real world.
• Note: Rational agents are different from Omniscient agents because
a rational agent tries to get the best possible outcome with the
current perception, which leads to imperfection. A chess AI can be
a good example of a rational agent because, with the current
action, it is not possible to foresee every possible outcome whereas
a tic-tac-toe AI is omniscient as it always knows the outcome in
advance.
 Why we need Artificial Intelligence?

In the real world, the knowledge has

some unwelcomed properties −
• Its volume is huge, next to
unimaginable.
• It is not well-organized or well-
formatted.
• It keeps changing constantly.
Four Main Approaches to Artificial
Intelligence.
 Thinking humanly: “The cognitive
modeling approach”
• Once we gather enough data, we can create a model to
simulate the human process.
• This model can be used to create software that can think
like humans.
• Within computer science, there is a field of study
called Cognitive Modeling that deals with simulating the
human thinking process.
• It tries to understand how humans solve problems.
• It takes the mental processes that go into this problem
solving process and turns it into a software model.
• This model can then be used to simulate human behavior.
• Cognitive modeling is used in a variety of AI applications
such as deep learning, expert systems, Natural Language
Processing, robotics, and so on.
 Acting humanly:” The Turing Test
approach”
• Alan Turing, proposed the Turing Test to provide a
definition of intelligence.
• It is a test to see if a computer can learn to mimic human
behavior.
• he proposed a test setup: he proposed that a human
should interrogate the machine through a text interface
• Another constraint is that the human cannot know who’s
on the other side of the interrogation, which means it can
either be a machine or a human.
• To enable this setup, a human will be interacting with two
entities through a text interface. These two entities are
called respondents.
• One of them will be a human and the other one will be the
machine.
The machine needs to be well versed with the following
things:
Natural Language Processing
Knowledge Representation
Reasoning
Machine Learning
 Thinking rationally: The “laws of
thought” approach
• Rationality refers to doing the right thing in a given
circumstance.
• The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the first to
attempt to codify “right thinking,” that is, irrefutable
reasoning processes.
• His syllogisms provided patterns for argument structures
that always yielded correct conclusions when given correct
premises — for example, “Socrates is a man; all men are
mortal; therefore, Socrates is mortal.”
• These laws of thought were supposed to govern the
operation of the mind; their study initiated the field
called logic.
 Acting rationally: The rational agent
approach
• An agent is just something that acts.
• computer agents are expected to do more: operate
autonomously, perceive their environment, persist over
a prolonged time period, adapt to change, and create
and pursue goals.
• Rational agents need to be performed in such a way
that there is maximum benefit to the entity performing
the action.
• An agent is said to act rationally if, given a set of rules,
it takes actions to achieve its goals.
• It just perceives and acts according to the information
that’s available.
 What is AI Technique
• AI Technique is a manner to organize and use
the knowledge efficiently in such a way that−
• It should be perceivable by the people who
provide it.
• It should be easily modifiable to correct
errors.
• It should be useful in many situations though
it is incomplete or inaccurate.
 Artificial Intelligence Techniques
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques are
revolutionizing the way humans interact with
technology.
• AI refers to the development of computer
systems that can perform tasks that typically
require human intelligence, such as visual
perception, speech recognition, decision-making,
and language translation.
• These systems are designed to learn from
experience and improve their performance over
time.
 4 types of Artificial Intelligence
Techniques.
• Machine Learning (ML)
• Machine Vision or Computer Vision
• Automation and Robotics
• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
 Machine Learning (ML)
• Machine Learning is a subset of AI that uses
statistical methods to enable machines to learn
from data.
• It involves the creation of algorithms that can
identify patterns, make predictions, and improve
their performance over time without explicit
programming.
• Some popular ML methods include:
• Supervised Learning:
• Unsupervised Learning:
• Reinforcement Learning:
 Machine Learning (ML)
• Supervised Learning: The algorithm is trained on a labeled dataset,
where the input-output pairs are provided. The algorithm learns the
relationship between input and output and applies this knowledge
to unseen data.
• Examples: Linear Regression, Support Vector Machines (SVM), and
Neural Networks.
• Unsupervised Learning: The algorithm is provided with an
unlabeled dataset, and it identifies patterns or structures in the
data without guidance.
• Examples: Clustering (e.g., K-means), Dimensionality Reduction
(e.g., Principal Component Analysis), and Association Rule Learning.
• Reinforcement Learning: The algorithm learns from its actions and
interactions with an environment to maximize a reward signal. It’s
particularly useful in decision-making and control tasks.
• Examples: Q-learning, Deep Q-Network (DQN), and Policy Gradient
methods.
 Machine Vision or Computer Vision
• Machine vision, also known as computer vision, is a field of
artificial intelligence that involves training machines to
interpret and understand visual data from the world around
us.
• This technology has the potential to transform a wide range
of industries, from manufacturing to healthcare to
autonomous vehicles.
• Machine vision is also being used in healthcare to assist
with medical imaging, such as X-rays and MRIs.
• One of the key applications of machine vision is in
manufacturing, where it can be used to automate quality
control and inspection processes.
• In the field of autonomous vehicles, machine vision is
essential for enabling self-driving cars to navigate and
respond to their surroundings.
 Automation and Robotics
• Automation and robotics are two related fields that
involve the use of technology to perform tasks that
would otherwise be performed by humans.
• Automation is the use of technology, such as software
or machines, to perform tasks with minimal human
intervention.
• Robotics, on the other hand, is the field of engineering
and technology that involves the design, construction,
and operation of robots.
• While automation and robotics are separate fields,
they are often used together in industrial settings.
• For example, robots can be used to automate
manufacturing processes, such as assembling car parts
or packaging goods, while automation software can be
used to control and manage the robots.
 Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a subfield of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) that focuses on enabling machines to
understand, interpret, and generate human language.
• NLP techniques are used in a variety of applications, including
speech recognition, machine translation, sentiment analysis,
and chatbots.
• There are several techniques used in NLP, including:
 Tokenization
 Part-of-speech tagging
 Sentiment analysis
 Named entity recognition
• NLP techniques have many practical applications.
• For example, chatbots use NLP to understand and respond to
user queries in natural language.
 Applications of Artificial Intelligence
Techniques
• Artificial Intelligence techniques have a wide
range of applications across various industries.
• Here are some of the most common applications
of AI techniques:
• Healthcare: AI techniques are used in healthcare
to improve patient care and diagnosis accuracy.
• Finance: AI techniques are used in finance to
detect fraud and identify potential risks.
• Retail: AI techniques are used in retail to improve
customer experience and increase sales.
• Manufacturing: AI techniques are used in
manufacturing to improve efficiency and reduce
costs.
Heuristic function for Tic – Tac – Toe
Problem
Heuristic function for Tic – Tac – Toe
Problem
 Agents
• An agent is anything that can be
viewed as perceiving its
environment through sensors Human agent
and acting upon that
environment through
actuators.
Robotic agent

Software agent
 Agents and Environments
• Perception: what agent see the environment.
• Perception history: It is the history of
perception which comes in a specific period.
• Actuators : A mechanism that puts something
into action.
• Effectors: Agents organs (hands and legs) that
becomes active.
Example of Agent & Environment
 Structure of Agents

Agent = Architecture + Agent Program

Architecture = the machinery that an agent executes

on.

Agent Program = an implementation of an agent

function.
Structure of Agent Program
Structure of Agent Function
 What are Intelligent Agents
• Agent is the solution to our problem.
• Agent needs Intelligence that what AI provides to work in Environment.
• Every Agent has to perform its own Agent Program, Agent Function ,
Mapping from Percept into Action.
• Operations of an Agent : Agent Program, Agent Function are the
operations.
• Agent Program : It runs on some sort of computing device with
physical sensors and actuators — call this as the Architecture.
Agent Program:
• Agent Program structure takes the current
percept as input from the sensors and return
an action to the actuators.
 Types of Agents
• There are five basic kinds of agent programs that
embody the principles underlying almost all intelligent
systems.
• They are
1. Simple reflex agents,
2. Model-based reflex agents,
3. Goal-based agents
4. Utility-based agents
5. Learning Agent
• Each agent program combines particular components
in particular way to generate actions.
Simple reflex agents
Structure of Simple reflex agents
Model-based reflex agents
Structure of Model-based reflex
agents
Goal-based agents
Structure of Goal-based agents
 Utility-based agents
• Goal-based agents and Utility-based agents has many
advantage in terms of flexibility and learning.
• Utility agents make rational decisions when goals are
inadequate
Structure of Utility-based agents
 Learning Agent
• A learning agent in AI is the type of agent that can learn
from its past experiences or it has learning capabilities.
• It starts to act with basic knowledge and then is able to act
and adapt automatically through learning.
Four main components:
• Learning element: It is responsible for making
improvements by learning from the environment
• Critic: The learning element takes feedback from critics
which describes how well the agent is doing with respect to
a fixed performance standard.
• Performance element: It is responsible for selecting
external action
• Problem Generator: This component is responsible for
suggesting actions that will lead to new and informative
experiences.
Structure of Learning Agent
 Characteristics of intelligent agents
i) Agents and Environment:
An agent is anything that can be viewed as :
• perceiving its environment through sensors and
• acting upon that environment through actuators
• Agents can be organic, robotic, or pure software.
• Not all agents are intelligent.
• Intelligent agents are agents that can operate
autonomously in complex environments.
• AI is concerned with the production of intelligent agents.
 Agent Terminology

Percept: Agent’s perceptual inputs at any given instant.

Percept sequence: History of everything agent has ever received.
Agent Function: Maps given percept sequence to an action /implementation.
 Examples of Agent:
• A software agent has Keystrokes, file contents,
received network packages which act as sensors
and displays on the screen, files, sent network
packets acting as actuators.
• A Human-agent has eyes, ears, and other organs
which act as sensors, and hands, legs, mouth, and
other body parts acting as actuators.
• A Robotic agent has Cameras and infrared range
finders which act as sensors and various motors
acting as actuators.
ii. Good Behaviour: The concept of Rationality

• An agent should act as a Rational Agent.

• A rational agent is one that does the right thing that is the
right actions will cause the agent to be most successful in
the environment.
Rationality
• What is rational at any given time depends on four things:
1. The performance measure that defines the criterion of
success.
2. The agent‘s prior knowledge of the environment.
3. The actions that the agent can perform.
4. The agent‘s percept sequence to date.

This leads to a definition of a rational agent (ideal

rational agent)
Omniscience, learning and autonomy.
• An omniscient agent knows the actual outcome of its
actions and can act accordingly; but omniscience is
impossible in reality.
• A rational agent not only to gather information, but
also to learn as much as possible from what it
perceives(Learning Agent).
• A rational agent should be autonomous – it should
learn what it can to compensate for partial or incorrect
prior knowledge. Concrete implementation, running on
the agent architecture.
– Example: A vacuum cleaning agent that learns to foresee
where and when additional dirt will appear will do better
than one that does not.
 iii. The Nature of the Environments
• In designing an agent, the first step must always be
specify the task environment as fully as possible.
• PEAS is an AI agent representation system that focuses
on evaluating the
• Performance measures
• Environment,
• Actuators and
• Sensors
• The PEAS system aids in defining the task environment.
• Performance measures: These are the
parameters used to measure the performance of
the agent. How well the agent is carrying out a
particular assigned task.
• Environment: It is the task environment of the
agent. The agent interacts with its environment.
It takes perceptual input from the environment
and acts on the environment using actuators.
• Actuators: These are the means of performing
calculated actions on the environment. For a
human agent; hands and legs are the actuators.
• Sensors: These are the means of taking the input
from the environment. For a human agent; ears,
eyes, and nose are the sensors.
 PEAS description of the “online
shopping agent”
• We need to describe the PEAS for
the “shopping for 3. Actuators:
DataWarehousing books on the • Filling in the forms.
internet” activity. • Display to the user
1. Performance measures: • Follow URL
• Price of the book 4. Sensors:
• Author of the book • Keyboard entry
• Quality of the book • Browser used to find web pages
• Book reviews on google. • HTML
• Obtain interested/desired books.
• Cost minimization.
2. Environment:
• Internet websites.
• Web pages of a particular website
• Vendors/Sellers
• Shippers
Examples of Agent types and their
PEAS description
Examples of Agent types and their
PEAS description
iv. Properties of Task Environment
Chess – In its current state, a coin has just a few alternative
moves, and these moves can be determined.
Self-Driving Cars– The activities of self-driving cars are not
consistent; they change over time.
Examples:
A person left alone in a maze is an example of the single-agent
system.
Football is a multi-agent game since each team has 11 players.
Examples:
A roller coaster ride is dynamic since it is in motion and the environment
changes all the time.
An empty house is static because nothing changes when an agent arrives.
Examples:
Chess is a discrete game since it has a finite number of moves. The amount of moves
varies from game to game, but it is always finite.
Self-driving cars are an example of continuous environments since their activities,
such as driving, parking, and so on, cannot be counted.
0
State Space Search
Representation of State Space Search
 8 Puzzle Problems:
• The 8-puzzle problem is a puzzle invented and
popularized by Noyes Palmer Chapman in the 1870s.
• It is played on a 3-by-3 grid with 8 square blocks
labeled 1 through 8 and a blank square.
• Your goal is to rearrange the blocks so that they are in
order.
• Here, we have a 3×3 matrix with movable tiles
numbered from 1 to 8 with a blank space.
• The tile adjacent to the blank space can slide into that
space.
• The objective is to reach a specified goal state similar
to the goal state
 8 Puzzle: Problem Formulation
• STATES: A state description specifies the location of each of the
tiles.
• INITIAL STATE: Any state can be designated as the initial state.
(Note that a parity property partitions the state space—any given
goal can be reached from exactly half of the possible initial states.)
• ACTIONS: While in the physical world it is a tile that slides, the
simplest way of describing action is to think of the blank space
moving Left, Right, Up, or Down. If the blank is at an edge or corner
then not all actions will be applicable.
• TRANSITION MODEL: Maps a state and action to a resulting state;
for example, if we apply Left to the start state in the Figure below,
the resulting state has the 5 and the blank switched.
• A typical instance of the 8-puzzle
• GOAL STATE: It identifies whether we have reached the correct
goal state. Although any state could be the goal, we typically specify
a state with the numbers in order, as in the Figure above.
• ACTION COST: Each action costs 1.
8 – Puzzle Problem using heuristic
8 – Puzzle Problem using heuristic
8 – Puzzle Problem using heuristic
8 – Puzzle Problem using heuristic
 8-queens problem:
• The eight queens problem is the problem of
placing eight queens on an 8×8 chessboard such
that none of them attack one another (no two
are in the same row, column, or diagonal). ...
• There are different solutions for the problem.
• The aim of this problem is to place eight queens
on a chessboard in an order where no queen may
attack another.
• A queen can attack other queens either
diagonally or in same row and column.
 Following steps are involved in this
Formulation
• States: Arrangement of any 0 to 8 queens on the
chessboard.
• Initial State: An empty chessboard
• Actions: Add a queen to any empty box.
• Transition model: Returns the chessboard with the
queen added in a box.
• Goal test: Checks whether 8-queens are placed on the
chessboard without any attack.
• Path cost: There is no need for path cost because only
final states are counted.
• Complete-state formulation: It starts with all the 8-
queens on the chessboard and moves them around,
saving from the attacks.
 VACUUM CLEANER PROBLEM:-
• Vacuum cleaner problem is a well-known search
problem for an agent which works on Artificial
Intelligence.
• In this problem, our vacuum cleaner is our agent. It is a
goal based agent, and the goal of this agent, which is
the vacuum cleaner, is to clean up the whole area.
• So, in the classical vacuum cleaner problem, we have
two rooms and one vacuum cleaner.
• There is dirt in both the rooms and it is to be cleaned.
The vacuum cleaner is present in any one of these
rooms.
• So, we have to reach a state in which both the rooms
are clean and are dust free.
• The vacuum cleaner can perform the following functions:
– move left,
– move right,
– move forward,
– move backward and
– to suck dust.
But as there are only two rooms in our problem, the vacuum cleaner
performs only the following functions here: move left, move right and
suck.
• Here the performance of our agent (vacuum cleaner) depends upon
many factors such as time taken in cleaning, the path followed in
cleaning, the number of moves the agent takes in total, etc.
• But we consider two main factors for estimating the performance
of the agent. They are:
• Search Cost: How long the agent takes to come up with the
solution.
• Path cost: How expensive each action in the solution are.
• The total cost of the solution is the sum of the above two
quantities.
Goal formulation: intuitively, we want all the dirt cleaned up.
Formally, the goal is { state 7, state 8 }.

Problem formulation(Actions): Left,Right,Suck,NoOp

State Space Graph:

 SOME REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS
Traveling salesperson problem (TSP)
• It is a touring problem where the salesman can visit
each city only once and to finishing at the city he starts
from.
• Representing the cities by vertices and the roads
between them by edges.
• In our problem, if each of the cities has a road to every
other city, we have a complete weighted graph.
• The objective is to find the shortest tour and sell-out
the stuff in each city.
• The "Traveling Salesman Problem" (TSP) is a common
problem applied to artificial intelligence
 Traveling salesperson problem
• An exhaustive search of all possible paths would
be guaranteed to find the shortest, but is
computationally intractable for all but small sets
of locations.
• For larger problems, optimization techniques are
needed to intelligently search the solution space
and find near-optimal solutions.
• The weight of each edge is the distance between
the nodes.
• The goal is to find the path with the shortest sum
of weights.
• The problem lies in finding a minimal path passing from
all vertices once. For example the path
• Path1 {A, B, C, D, E, A} and the path
• Path2 {A, B, C, E, D, A} pass all the vertices but
• Path1 has a total length of 24 and
• Path2 has a total length of 31.
 Production Rules in AI
• A production system (popularly known as a production rule
system) is a kind of cognitive architecture that is used to
implement search algorithms and replicate human
problem-solving skills.
• AI Production Systems are the backbone of decision-
making.
• These systems automate complex tasks through production
rules, efficiently processing data and generating insights.
• This problem-solving knowledge is encoded in the system in
the form of little quanta popularly known as productions.
• It consists of two components: rule and action.
• Rules recognize the condition, and the actions part has the
knowledge of how to deal with the condition.
• Their key features include simplicity, modularity,
adaptability, and modifiability.
Components or Elements of the Production
System
 Global Database
• A global database consists of the architecture
used as a central data structure.
• A database contains all the necessary data
and information required for the successful
completion of a task.
• It can be divided into two parts as permanent
and temporary.
• The permanent part of the database consists
of fixed actions, whereas the temporary part
alters according to circumstances.
 Production Rules
• A set of rules that operates on the global
database.
• Each rule consists of a precondition and
postcondition that the global database either
meets or not.
• For example, if a condition is met by the
global database, then the production rule is
applied successfully.
 Production Rules
Inference Rules
• There are many production rules in Artificial
Intelligence. One of them is the inference rule.
• It is a type of rule that consists of a logical
form used for transformation.
• Types of inference rules in AI:
1. Deductive Inference Rule
2. Abductive Inference Rule
 Deductive Inference Rule
• It consists of a logic that helps reasoning with the
help of multiple statements to reach a conclusion.
Example:
• Statement 1: All mammals are animals.
• Statement 2: Dogs are mammals.
• Conclusion: Therefore, dogs are animals.
• Using the deductive inference rule of categorical
syllogism, which states that if the major premise
(“All mammals are animals”) and the minor
premise (“Dogs are mammals”) are true, then the
conclusion (“Therefore, dogs are animals”) is also
true.
 Abductive Inference Rule
• This rule helps explain the conclusion most simply by
using the given observations.
Example:
• Observation 1: The ground is wet.
• Observation 2: There are dark clouds in the sky.
• Conclusion: It might have rained.
• The abductive inference rule suggests that the simplest
and most likely explanation that can account for the
given observations should be considered.
• In this case, the most straightforward explanation is
that it might have rained. The wet ground and the
presence of dark clouds in the sky are consistent with
the hypothesis that rain occurred.
 Control System
• The control system manages the execution of
production rules.
• A control system that acts as the decision-maker,
decides which production rule should be applied.
• The Control system stops computation or
processing when a termination condition is met
on the database.
• It determines the sequence in which rules are
applied, ensuring efficient processing and
optimizing the system’s performance.
 Example: Water Jug Problem:
Problem:
• You are given two jugs,
– a 4-gallon one and
– a 3-gallon one.
• Neither has any measuring mark on it.
• There is a pump that can be used to fill the jugs
with water.
• How can you get exactly 2 gallons of water into
the 4-gallon jug.
 Water Jug Problem
• The water jug problem, also known as the ‘water-
pouring problem’ or ‘die hard problem,’ is a
classic challenge in artificial intelligence and
computer science.
• This puzzle revolves around measuring a specific
quantity of water using multiple jugs, each with
varying capacities.
• It’s not merely a brain teaser; it’s a fundamental
problem frequently employed to exemplify
various problem-solving strategies and
algorithms, notably search and optimization
techniques.
 Defining the Problem
• The Water Jug Problem is a classic puzzle in
artificial intelligence involving two jugs, one with
a capacity of ‘x’ liters and the other ‘y’ liters, and
a water source.
• The goal is to measure a specific ‘z’ liters of water
using these jugs, with no volume markings.
• It’s a test of problem-solving and state space
search, where the initial state is both jugs empty
and the goal is to reach a state where one jug
holds ‘z’ liters.
• Various operations like filling, emptying, and
pouring between jugs are used to find an efficient
sequence of steps to achieve the desired water
measurement.
 Using State Space Search
• Solving the Water Jug Problem requires a systematic
approach.
• This is where the concept of state space search comes into
play.
• State space search is a fundamental concept in AI that
involves exploring possible states of a problem to reach a
desired goal state.
• Each state represents a specific configuration of water in
the jugs.
• The initial state is when both jugs are empty, and the goal
state is when you have ‘z’ liters of water in one of the jugs.
• The search algorithm explores different states by applying
various operations like filling a jug, emptying it, or pouring
water from one jug into the other.
Algorithm to Solve Water Jug Problem
• Now, we will follow the Breadth-First Search (BFS)
approach to solve the problem:
• Start with the initial state where both jugs are empty.
• Create a queue. Next, add the initial state to it.
• While the queue is not empty, opt for the following:
– Pop the front state from the queue.
– Apply all possible production rules to generate new states.
– Check if any of these new states match the goal state.
– If a goal state is found, the problem is solved.
– If not, add the new states to the queue for further
exploration.
• BFS ensures that you find the shortest path to the goal
state, which is efficient for solving the Water Jug
Problem.
Solution:
• The state space for this problem can be described as
the set of ordered pairs of integers (x,y)
 Problem Characteristics, it’s classification and
Issues in the design of search programs
• In order to choose the most appropriate problem
solving method, it is necessary to analyze the problem
along various key dimensions. These dimensions are
referred to as problem characteristics.
• Is the problem decomposable into a set of
independent smaller or easier sub-problems?
• A very large and composite problem can be easily
solved if it can be broken into smaller problems and
recursion could be used.
• This can be done by breaking it into three smaller
problems and solving each by applying specific rules.
Adding the results we can find the complete solution.
• But there are certain problems which cannot be
decomposed into sub-problems.
• For example Blocks world problem in which, start and
goal state are given as,
• Here, solution can be achieved by moving blocks in a
sequence such that goal state can be derived.
• Solution steps are interdependent and cannot be
decomposed in sub problems.
• These two examples, symbolic integration and the
blocks would illustrate the difference between
decomposable and non-decomposable problems.
• Can solution steps be ignored or at least
undone if they prove unwise?
• Problem fall under three classes, (i) ignorable,
(ii) recoverable and (iii) irrecoverable.
• This classification is with reference to the
steps of the solution to a problem.
• Consider theorem proving. We may later find
that it is of no use. We can still proceed
further, since nothing is lost by this redundant
step. This is an example of ignorable solutions
steps.
• Is the problem’s universe predictable?
• Problems can be classified into those with certain
outcome (eight puzzle and water jug problems)
and those with uncertain outcome (playing
cards).
• In certain — outcome problems, planning can be
done to generate a sequence of operators that
guarantees to lead to solution.
• For uncertain outcome problems, planning can at
best generate a sequence of operators that has a
good probability of leading to a solution.
• Is a good solution to the problem obvious without
comparison to all other possible solutions?
• There are two categories of problems — Any path
problem and Best path problem.
• In any path problem, like the water jug and 8
puzzle problems, we are satisfied with the solution,
irrespective of the solution path taken.
• Whereas in the other category not just any solution
is acceptable but we want the best path solution.
• Like that of travelling sales man problem, which is
the shortest path problem.
• In any — path problems, by heuristic methods we
obtain a solution and we do not explore alternatives.
• Is the desired solution a state of the world or a path
to a state?
• Consider the problem of natural language processing.
• Finding a consistent interpretation for the sentence
“The bank president ate a dish of pasta salad with the
fork”.
• We need to find the interpretation but not the record
of the processing by which the interpretation is found.
• Contrast this with the water jug problem.
• In water jug problem, it is not sufficient to report that
we have solved, but the path that we found to the
state (2, 0). Thus the statement of a solution to this
problem must be a sequence of operations that
produces the final state.
• Is the problem’s universe predictable?
• Problems can be classified into those with
certain outcome (eight puzzle and water
jug problems) and those with uncertain
outcome (playing cards).
• In certain — outcome problems, planning can
be done to generate a sequence of operators
that guarantees to lead to solution.
Problem Classification
• Actual problems are examined from the point of view
of all these questions; it becomes apparent that there
are several broad classes into which the problems fall.
Issues in the design of search programs
• The direction in which to conduct search (forward
versus backward reasoning). If the search proceeds
from start state towards a goal state, it is a forward
search or we can also search from the goal.
• How to select applicable rules (Matching). Production
systems typically spend most of their time looking for
rules to apply. So, it is critical to have efficient
procedures for matching rules against states.
• How to represent each node of the search process
(knowledge representation problem).