Artificial Intelligence Chapter1

Anurag Dixit
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

1. Introduction

What is artificial intelligence?

It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent

computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand
human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically
observable.

What is intelligence?

Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world.
Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some
machines.

Natural Intelligence

• Definition. Intelligence – inter ligare (Latin) – the capacity of creating

connections between notions.

• Wikipedia: the ability to solve problems.

• WordNet: the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience.

• Complex use of creativity, talent, imagination.

• Biology - Intelligence is the ability to adapt to new conditions and to successfully

cope with life situations.

• Psychology - a general term encompassing various mental abilities, including the

ability to remember and use what one has learned, in order to solve problems,
adapt to new situations, and understand and manipulate one’s reality.

• Nonlinear, non-predictable behavior.

1
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Dictionary: Intelligence

1. (a) The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.

(b) The faculty of thought and reason.

(c) Superior powers of mind.

2. An intelligent, incorporeal being, especially an angel.

3. Information; news.

4. (a) Secret information, especially about an actual or potential enemy.

(b) An agency, staff, or office employed in gathering such information.

(c) Espionage agents, organizations, and activities considered as a group

What is intelligence then?

Fast thinking?

Knowledge?

Ability to pass as a human?

Ability to reason logically?

Ability to learn?

Ability to perceive and act upon one’s environment?

Ability to play chess at grand-master’s level?

Why Study AI?

AI helps computer scientists and engineers build more useful and user-friendly
computers,

Psychologists, linguists, and philosophers understand the principles that constitute what
we call intelligence.

AI is an interdisciplinary field of study. Many ideas and techniques now standard in CS

(symbolic computation, time sharing, objects, declarative programming, . . . ) were
pioneered by AI-related research.

2
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Dictionary: Artificial Intelligence

1. Dictionary 1:

(a) The ability of a computer or other machine to perform those activities that are
normally thought to require intelligence.

(b) The branch of computer science concerned with the development of machines having
this ability.

2. Dictionary 2:

The subfield of computer science concerned with the concepts and methods of symbolic

inference by computer and symbolic knowledge representation for use in making

inferences. AI can be seen as an attempt to model aspects of human thought

on computers. It is also sometimes defined as trying to solve by computer any problem

that a human can solve faster.

Definition from R & N book: a program that

– Acts like human (Turing test)

– Thinks like human (human-like patterns of thinking steps)

– Acts or thinks rationally (logically, correctly)

Definition: The science of developing methods to solve problems usually associated

with human intelligence.

– Alternate definitions:

– building intelligent entities or agents;

– making computers think or behave like humans

– studying the human thinking through computational models;

– generating intelligent behavior, reasoning, learning.

Ray Kurzweil on AI �

– “Artificial intelligence is the ability to perform a task that is normally

performed by natural intelligence, particularly human natural

3
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
intelligence.” � (or in some cases, tasks that require greater-than-human
intelligence)

John McCarthy on AI �

“It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent
computer programs.” �

“Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world.”

Operational Definition of AI

Systems that act like humans

Turing test.

Systems that think like humans

Cognitive Science

Systems that think rationally

Logic-based AI

Systems that act rationally

Rational Agents

Thinking Rationally: Laws of Thought

Several Greek schools at the time of Aristotle developed various forms of logic:

Notation and rules of derivation for thoughts; they may or may not have proceeded to the
idea of mechanization Direct line through mathematics and philosophy to modern AI

Problems:

1. Not all intelligent behavior is mediated by logical deliberation

2. What is the purpose of thinking? What thoughts should I have?

Thinking Humanly: Cognitive Science

1960s “cognitive revolution”: information-processing psychology replaced prevailing

orthodoxy of behaviorism

4
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Require scientific theories of internal activities of the brain

What level of abstraction? “Knowledge” or “circuits”?

How to validate? It requires

1. Predicting and testing behavior of human subjects (top-down)

2. Direct identification from neurological data (bottom-up)

Both approaches, Cognitive Science and Cognitive Neuroscience, share with AI on: the
available theories do not explain (or engender) anything resembling human-level general
intelligence.

Rational Agents

An agent is an entity that perceives and acts

This course is about designing rational agents

Abstractly, an agent is a function from percept histories to actions:

For any given class of environments and tasks, we seek the agent (or class of agents) with
the best performance

Caveat: computational limitations make perfect rationality unachievable

Approach: design best program for given machine resources

Acting Rationally

Rational behavior: doing the right thing, that which is expected to maximize goal
achievement, given the available information

Doesn’t necessarily involve thinking—e.g., blinking reflex—but thinking should be in

the service of rational action

Aristotle: Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought
to aim at some good.

Artificial Intelligence Vs Conventional Programming

5
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

Artificial Intelligence Conventional Programming

Artificial Intelligence Conventional computer programming
a. primarily symbolic a'. algorithmic
b. heuristic search (solutions steps explicit)
(solution steps implicit) b'. primarily numeric
c. control structure usually c'. information and control
separate from domain knowledge integrated together
d. usually easy to modify, d'. difficult to modify
update and enlarge e'. correct answers required
e. some incorrect answers f'. best possible solution
often tolerable
usually sought
f. satisfactory answers usually
acceptable

Foundations of AI

(a) Computer Science & Engineering

Computer hardware and Software

(b) Philosophy

Rule of Reasoning

(c) Biology

Human /animals brain activity

(d) Linguistics

communication

(e) Cognitive Science

High level human/animal thinking

(f) Psychology

Complex systems game

(g) Economics

Cost benefits ratio

(h) Mathematics

6
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Logic algorithm optimization

AI Prehistory

Philosophy logic, methods of reasoning mind as physical system foundations of learning,

language, rationality

Mathematics formal representation and proof algorithms, computation, (un)decidability,

(in)tractability probability

Psychology adaptation phenomena of perception and motor control experimental

techniques (psychophysics, etc.)

Economics formal theory of rational decisions

Linguistics knowledge representation grammar

Neuroscience plastic physical substrate for mental activity

Control theory homeostatic systems, stability simple optimal agent designs

History of AI

• The birth of AI (1943 – 1956)

– Pitts and McCulloch (1943): simplified mathematical model of neurons

(resting/firing states) can realize all propositional logic primitives (can
compute all Turing computable functions)

– Allen Turing: Turing machine and Turing test (1950)

– Claude Shannon: information theory; early game theory, possibility of

chess playing computers

– Tracing back to Boole, Aristotle, Euclid (logics, syllogisms, algebra of

symbols)

• Early enthusiasm (1952 – 1969)

– 1956 Dartmouth conference

John McCarthy (Lisp);

Marvin Minsky (first neural network machine);

7
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Alan Newell and Herbert Simon (GPS);

– Emphasize on intelligent general problem solving

Heuristics of human problem solving (means-ends analysis in GPS );

Resolution by John Robinson (basis for automatic theorem proving);

heuristic search (A*, AO*, game tree search)

• Emphasis on knowledge (1966 – 1974)

– domain specific knowledge is the key to overcome existing difficulties

– knowledge representation (KR) paradigms

– declarative vs. procedural representation

• Knowledge-based systems (1969 – 1979)

– DENDRAL: the first knowledge intensive system (determining 3D

structures of complex chemical compounds)

– MYCIN: first rule-based expert system (containing 450 rules for

diagnosing blood infectious diseases)

EMYCIN: an ES shell

– PROSPECTOR: first knowledge-based system that made significant profit

(geological ES for mineral deposits)

– AI became an industry (1980 – 1989)

– wide applications in various domains

– commercially available tools

– Current trends (1990 – present)

– more realistic goals

– more practical (application oriented)

– resurgence of neural networks and emergence of genetic algorithms

8
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
– distributed AI, intelligent agents, and semantic web

Possible Approaches

Like
humans Well
Rationa
Thin GPS l
k agents AI tends to
work mostly
in this area
Ac Turing Heuristi
c
test,
t Eliza systems

Planning and Problem Solving

In the AI literature, planning refers to determining a sequence of actions you know how
to perform that will achieve a particular objective. Problem solving is finding a plan for a
task in an abstract domain. A problem is hard if you do not know how to work out an
appropriate sequence of steps and is solved once such a sequence has been found: actual
execution is irrelevant.

Unlike many areas of AI, planning shows a clear line of researchers building on each
other's work

9
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
I. SOME BASIC IDEAS

To avoid having to cope with the complexities of the physical world, much early work in
AI was directed toward abstract activities such as proving theorems, playing games like
chess and checkers, or solving puzzles. To illustrate the discussion in this section, we will
use the Tower of Hanoi (Hanoi), a puzzle involving three pegs, on which disks can be
placed, and a set of disks of varying size

The disks only can be moved, one at a time, between the pegs, and a disk must
never be stacked on top of a smaller one. The problem is to transport the entire stack of
disks to another peg. Reasoning about such a problem obviously requires representing
states of the world and having some way of specifying the objective, or goal. These
representations must be rich enough to embody all the aspects of the world that will be
reasoned about. In particular, since planning is about changing things, every property that
might be affected must be represented as dependent on time in some way. For Hanoi, this
requires only an ability to represent sets of disks' positions as the disks are initially, as
they are required to be eventually, and as they may be in between. A planner also needs
to represent what can be done—such as the moves that can be made, as determined by the
nature of the game or puzzle. There is a fundamental difference between an agent
executing an action, and thus affecting the world, and a planning system manipulating
representations to derive information about doing so, which we call applying an operator

Introduction to Predicate calculus

10
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
The Propositional Calculus

Symbols and Sentences

The propositional calculus and, in the next subsection, the predicate calculus are first of
all languages. Using their words, phrases, and sentences, we can represent and reason
about properties and relationships in the world. The first step in describing a language is
to introduce the pieces that make it up: its set of symbols.

PROPOSITIONAL CALCULUS SYMBOLS

The symbols of propositional calculus are the propositional symbols:

P, Q, R, S, '"

truth symbols:true, false

and connectives: /\, V, -', ~, =

Propositional symbols denote propositions, or statements about the world that may be
either true or false, such as "the car is red" or "water is wet." Propositions are denoted by
uppercase letters near the end of the English alphabet Sentences in the propositional
calculus are fanned from these atomic symbols according to the following rules:

PROPOSITIONAL CALCULUS SENTENCES

Every propositional symbol and truth symbol is a sentence.

For example: true, P, Q, and R are sentences.

The negation of a sentence is a sentence.

For example: --, P and -, false are sentences.

The conjunction, or and, of two sentences is a sentence.

For example: P /\ -, P is a sentence.

The disjunction, or or, of two sentences is a sentence.

For example: P v --, P is a sentence.

The implication of one sentence from another is a sentence.

For example: P -7 Q is a sentence.

11
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
The equivalence of two sentences is a sentence.

For example: P v Q = R is a sentence.

Legal sentences are also called well-formed formulas or WFFs.

In expressions of the form P A Q, P and Q are called the conjuncts. In P v Q, P and Q are
referred to as disjuncts. In an implication, P -7 Q, P is the premise or antecedent and Q,
the conclusion or consequent.

In propositional calculus sentences, the symbols ( ) and [ ] are used to group symbols nto
sub expressions and so to control their order of evaluation and meaning.

The Semantics of the Propositional Calculus

In this section we formally define the semantics or "meaning" of these sentences.

Because AI programs must reason with their representational structures, it is important to
demonstrate that the truth of their conclusions depends only on the truth of their initial
knowledge, i.e., that logical errors are not introduced by the inference procedures. A
precise treatment of semantics is essential to this goal.

A proposition symbol corresponds to a statement about the world. For example, P may
'denote the statement "it is raining" or Q, the statement "I live in a brown house." A
proposition may be either true or false, given some state of the world. The truth value
assignment to propositional sentences is called an interpretation, an assertion about their
truth in some possible world.

Formally, an interpretation is a mapping from the propositional symbols into the set

T. F}.

PROPOSITIONAL CALCULUS SEMANTICS

An interpretation of a set of propositions is the assignment of a truth value, either T

or F, to each propositional symbol. The symbol true is always assigned T, and the symbol
false is assigned F.

12
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Predicate Calculus

In propositional calculus, each atomic symbol (P, 0, etc.) denotes a proposition of some
complexity. There is no way to access the components of an individual assertion.
Predicate calculus provides this ability. For example, instead of letting a single
propositional symbol,

P, denote the entire sentence "it rained on Tuesday," we can create a predicate weather
that describes a relationship between a date and the weather: weather (tuesday, rain).
Through inference rules we can manipulate predicate calculus expressions, accessing
their individual components and inferring new sentences.

Predicate calculus also allows expressions to contain variables. Variables let us create

general assertions about classes of entities. For example, we could state that for all values

of X, where Xis a day of the week, the statement weather(X, rain) is true; i.e., it rains
every day. As with propositional calculus, we will first define the syntax of the language
and then discuss its semantics.

The Syntax of Predicates and Sentences

Before defining the syntax of correct expressions in the predicate calculus, we define an
alphabet and grammar for creating the symbols of the language. This corresponds to the
lexical aspect of a programming language definition. Predicate calculus symbols, like the

tokens in a programming language, are irreducible syntactic elements: they cannot be

broken into their component parts by the operations of the language.

In this text we represent predicate calculus symbols as strings of letters and digits
beginning with a letter. Blanks and non alphanumeric characters cannot appear within the
string, although the underscore, _, may be used to improve readability.

PREDICATE CALCULUS SYMBOLS

The alphabet that makes up the symbols of the predicate calculus consists of:

1. The set of letters, both upper- and lowercase, of the English alphabet.

2. The set of digits, 0, 1, ... ,9.

13
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
3. The underscore, _.

Symbols in the predicate calculus begin with a letter and are followed by any sequence of
these legal characters.

Legitimate characters in the alphabet of predicate calculus symbols include

aR69p_z

Examples of characters not in the alphabet include

#%@/&""

Parentheses '"( )", commas ':", and periods "." are used solely to construct well-formed
expressions and do not denote objects or relations in the world. These are called
improper symbols.

Predicate calculus symbols may represent either variables, constants, functions, or

predicates. Constants name specific objects or properties in the world. Constant symbols
must begin with a lowercase letter. Predicate calculus also allows functions on objects in
the world of discourse. Function symbols (like constants) begin with a lowercase letter.
Functions denote a mapping of one or more elements in a set (called the domain of the
function) into a unique element of another set (the range of the function). Elements of the
domain and range are objects in k world of discourse. In addition to common arithmetic
functions such as addition and multiplication, functions may define mappings between
nonnumeric domains.

SYMBOLS and TERMS

Predicate calculus symbols include:

1. Truth symbols true and false (these are reserved symbols).

2. Constant symbols are symbol expressions having the first character lowercase.

3. Variable symbols are symbol expressions beginning with an uppercase character.

4. Function symbols are symbol expressions having the first character lowercase.

14
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Functions have an attached arity indicating the number of elements of the domain
mapped onto each element of the range.

A function expression consists of a function constant of atiry n, followed by n terms,

t1, t2 , ……, tn, enclosed in parentheses and separated by commas.

A predicate calculus term is either a constant, variable, or function expression. Thus, a

predicate calculus term may be used to denote objects and properties in a problem
domain. Examples of terms are:

PREDICATES and ATOMIC SENTENCES

Predicate symbols are symbols beginning with a lowercase letter.

Predicates have an associated positive integer referred to as the arity or "argument

number" for the predicate. Predicates with the same name but different arities are

considered distinct.

An atomic sentence is a predicate constant of arity n, followed by n terms,

t., 1" ..., t, enclosed in parentheses and separated by commas.

The truth values, true and false, are also atomic sentences.

Atomic sentences are also called atomic expressions, atoms, or propositions.

We may combine atomic sentences using logical operators to form sentences in the

predicate calculus. These are the same logical connectives used in propositional calculus:

A, v, -', ---7, and =.

When a variable appears as an argument in a sentence, it refers to unspecified objects

in the domain. First order (Section 2.2.2) predicate calculus includes two symbols, the

variable quantifiers V and 3, that constrain the meaning of a sentence containing a

variable. A quantifier is followed by a variable and a sentence, such as

3 Y friends(Y, peter)

V X likes(X, ice_cream)

15
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
The universal quantifier, v, indicates that the sentence is true for all values of the
variable.

In the example, V X likes(X, ice_cream) is true for all values in the domain of the
definition of X. The existential quantifier, 3, indicates that the sentence is true for at least
one value in the domain. 3 Y friends(Y, peter) is true if there is at least one object,
indicated by Y that is a friend of peter.

Sentences in the predicate calculus are defined inductivefy.

PREDICATE CALCULUS SENTENCES

Every atomic sentence is a sentence.

1. If 5 is a sentence, then so is its negation, ---, 5.

2. If s, and 52 are sentences, then so is their conjunction, 5 j 1\ 52'

3. If 81 and 82 are sentences, then so is their disjunction, s, v 52'

4. If 51 and Sz are sentences, then so is their implication, 51 ~ 82,

LISP

Overview

• Lisp stands for “LISt Process”

– Invented by John McCarthy (1958)

– Simple data structure (atoms and lists)

– Heavy use of recursion

– Prefix notation of expressions

– Interpretive language

• Why Lisp

– It is the most widely used AI programming language

– It is good for writing production software

16
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
– It is especially good for prototyping

– It has got lots of features other languages don’t

– You can write new programs and extend old programs really, really
quickly in Lisp

Table of Contents

• Symbols
• Numbers
• Conses
• Lists
• Functions
• Printing
• Forms and the Top-level Loop
• Special Forms
• Binding
• Dynamic Scoping
• Arrays
• Strings
• Structures
• Setf
• Booleans and Conditionals
• Iteration
• Non-local Exits
• Funcall, Apply, and Mapcar
• Lambda
• Sorting
• Equality
• Some Useful List Functions
• Getting Started with Emacs
• Further Information

Symbols

17
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
A symbol is just a string of characters. There are restrictions on what you can include in a
symbol and what the first character can be, but as long as you stick to letters, digits, and
hyphens, you'll be safe. (Except that if you use only digits and possibly an initial hyphen,
LISP will think you typed an integer rather than a symbol.) Some examples of symbols:
a
b
c1
foo
bar
baaz-quux-garply

Some things you can do with symbols follow. (Things in bold after a > prompt are what
you type to the LISP interpreter, while other things are what the LISP interpreter prints
back to you. The ; is LISP's comment character: everything from a ; to the end of line is
ignored.)

> (setq a 5) ;store a number as the value of a symbol

5
> a ;take the value of a symbol
5
> (let ((a 6)) a) ;bind the value of a symbol temporarily to 6
6
> a ;the value returns to 5 once the let is
finished
5
> (+ a 6) ;use the value of a symbol as an argument to a
function
11
> b ;try to take the value of a symbol which has
no value
Error: Attempt to take the value of the unbound symbol B

t and nil

There are two special symbols, t and nil. The value of t is defined always to be t, and
the value of nil is defined always to be nil. LISP uses t and nil to represent true and
false. An example of this use is in the if statement, described more fully later:
> (if t 5 6)
5
> (if nil 5 6)
6
> (if 4 5 6)
5

keyword

The last example is odd but correct: nil means false, and anything else means true.
(Unless we have a reason to do otherwise, we use t to mean true, just for the sake of

18
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
clarity.) Symbols like t and nil are called self-evaluating symbols, because they evaluate
to themselves. There is a whole class of self-evaluating symbols called keywords; any
symbol whose name starts with a colon is a keyword. (See below for some uses for
keywords.) Some examples:
> :this-is-a-keyword
:THIS-IS-A-KEYWORD
> :so-is-this
:SO-IS-THIS
> :me-too
:ME-TOO

Numbers

An integer is a string of digits optionally preceded by + or -. A real number looks like an

integer, except that it has a decimal point and optionally can be written in scientific
notation. A rational looks like two integers with a / between them. LISP supports
complex numbers, which are written #c(r i) (where r is the real part and i is the
imaginary part). A number is any of the above. Here are some numbers:
5
17
-34
+6
3.1415
1.722e-15
#c(1.722e-15 0.75)
The standard arithmetic functions are all available: +, -, *, /, floor, ceiling, mod, sin,
cos, tan, sqrt, exp, expt, and so forth. All of them accept any kind of number as an
argument. +, -, *, and / return a number according to type contagion: an integer plus a
rational is a rational, a rational plus a real is a real, and a real plus a complex is a
complex. Here are some examples:
> (+ 3 3/4) ;type contagion
15/4
> (exp 1) ;e
2.7182817
> (exp 3) ;e*e*e
20.085537
> (expt 3 4.2) ;exponent with a base other than e
100.90418
> (+ 5 6 7 (* 8 9 10)) ;the fns +-*/ all accept multiple arguments
738

There is no limit to the absolute value of an integer except the memory size of your
computer. Be warned that computations with bignums (as large integers are called) can
be slow. (So can computations with rationals, especially compared to the corresponding
computations with small integers or floats.)

19
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Subfields of AI

The subfields of artificial intelligence can be classified in terms of their role in either
perception, reasoning, or actuation.

• Perception

– computer vision

– natural language processing

• Reasoning (i.e., problem solving): mapping from percepts to actuators

– automated reasoning

– knowledge representation

– search and optimization

– decision/game theory

– machine learning

• Actuation

– robotics

– softbotics

Intelligent Agents

Intelligent Agents
The primary goal of (weak) artificial intelligence is to build intelligent entities. A related
(but not a necessary) goal is to understand intelligent entities, and perhaps even to
understand and engineer human intelligence (strong AI).

Modern AI can be characterized as the engineering of rational agents. An agent is an

entity that (i) perceives, (ii) reasons, and (iii) acts. In computational terms, that which is
perceived is an input; to reason is to compute; to act is to output the result of
computation. Typically, an agent is equipped with objectives. A rational agent is one that
acts optimally with respect to its objectives. Agents are often distinguished from typical

20
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
computational processes by their autonomy—they operate without direct human
intervention. In addition, agents are reactive—they perceive their environments, and
attempt to respond in a timely manner to changing conditions—and proactive—their
behavior is goal directed, rather than simply response-driven.

Autonomous agents may be rule-based, goal-based, or utility-based. Rule-based agents

operate according to hard-coded sets of rules, like ELIZA. A goal-based agent acts so as
to achieve its goals, by planning a path from its current state to a goal state, like GPS or
theorem provers. Utility-based agents distinguish between goals, based on utilities that
are associated with goal states.

Agent Sensors Actuators

Human Senses Arms, Legs

Robotic Cameras Motors, Wheels

Software Bit Strings Bit Strings

Figure Intelligent Agent

21
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

Agent environments may be at least partially characterized as follows:

• Deterministic vs. Nondeterministic: is the next state predictable (e.g., chess), or is there
uncertainty about state transitions (eg, backgammon)?

• Discrete vs. Continuous: can the environment be described in discrete terms (e.g.,
chess), or is the environment continuous (e.g., driving)?

• Static vs. Dynamic: is the environment static (e.g., chess), or can it change while the
agent is reasoning about its plan of action (e.g., driving)?

• Sequential vs. One-shot: does the agent need to reason about the future impact of its
immediate actions (e.g., chess), or can it treat each action independently (e.g.,
Rochambeau)?

• Single agent vs. Multiagent: can we assume the agent operating alone in its
environment, or need it explicitly reason about the actions of other agents (e.g., chess,
backgammon, Rochambeau, driving)?

An agent is a system that perceives its environment through sensors and acts upon that
environment through effectors.

22
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

An agent can be seen as a mapping between percept sequences and actions.

Agent : Percept → Action
The less an agents relies on its built-in knowledge, as opposed to the current percept
sequence, the more autonomous it is.
A rational agent is an agent whose acts try to maximize some performance measure.

Example: Vacuum-cleaner

Percepts: location and contents, e.g., [A,Dirty]

Actions: Left, Right, Suck, NoOp

function REFLEX-VACUUM-AGENT( [location,status]) returns

action
if status = Dirty then return Suck
else if location = A then return Right
else if location = B then return Left
Intelligent Agents

• Agent: entity in a program or environment capable of generating action.

• An agent uses perception of the environment to make decisions about actions to
take.
• The perception capability is usually called a sensor.
• The actions can depend on the most recent perception or on the entire history
(percept sequence).

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.
• The part of the agent taking an action is called an actuator.
• environment -> sensors -> agent function -> actuators -> environment

23
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

Agent Classification:

(a)Table-driven agents

– use a percept sequence/action table in memory to find the next action.

They are implemented by a (large) lookup table.

(b) Simple reflex agents

– are based on condition-action rules, implemented with an appropriate

production system. They are stateless devices which do not have
memory of past world states.

(c) Agents with memory

– have internal state, which is used to keep track of past states of the
world.

(d) Agents with goals

– are agents that, in addition to state information, have goal

information that describes desirable situations. Agents of this kind
take future events into consideration

(e) Utility-based agents

24
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
– base their decisions on classic axiomatic utility theory in order to act
rationally.

Rational Agent

• A rational agent is one that can take the right decision in every situation.
• Performance measure: a set of criteria/test bed for the success of the agent's
behavior.
• The performance measures should be based on the desired effect of the agent on
the environment.

Rationality

• The agent's rational behavior depends on:

• the performance measure that defines success
• the agent's knowledge of the environment
• the action that it is capable of performing
• the current sequence of perceptions.
• Definition: for every possible percept sequence, the agent is expected to take an
action that will maximize its performance measure.

Agent Autonomy

• An agent is omniscient if it knows the actual outcome of its actions. Not possible
in practice.
• An environment can sometimes be completely known in advance.
• Exploration: sometimes an agent must perform an action to gather information (to
increase perception).
• Autonomy: the capacity to compensate for partial or incorrect prior knowledge
(usually by learning).

Environment

• Task environment - the problem that the agent is a solution to.

• Properties:
• Observable - fully or partially
• A fully observable environment needs less representation.
• Deterministic or stochastic
• Strategic -deterministic except for the actions of other agents.

25
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
Environment

• Episodic or sequential
• Sequential - future actions depend on the previous ones.
• Episodic - individual unrelated tasks for the agent to solve.
• Static - dynamic
• Discrete - continuous
• Single agent - multi agent
• Multiple agents can be competitive or cooperative.

More Definitions of Agents

• "An agent is a persistent software entity dedicated to a specific purpose. " (Smith,
Cypher, and Spohrer 94 )
• "Intelligent agents are software entities that carry out some set of operations on
behalf of a user or another program with some degree of independence or
autonomy, and in so doing, employ some knowledge or representation of the
user's goals or desires." (IBM)
• "Intelligent agents continuously perform three functions: perception of dynamic
conditions in the environment; action to affect conditions in the environment; and
reasoning to interpret perceptions, solve problems, draw inferences, and
determine actions. "(Hayes-Roth 94)

Agent vs. Program

• Size - an agent is usually smaller than a program.

• Purpose - an agent has a specific purpose while programs are multi-functional.
• Persistence - an agent's life span is not entirely dependent on a user launching and
quitting it.
• Autonomy - an agent doesn't need the user's input to function.

Simple Agents

• Table-driven agents: the function consists in a lookup table of actions to be taken

for every possible state of the environment.
• If the environment has n variables, each with t possible states, then the table size
is tn.
• Only works for a small number of possible states for the environment.
• Simple reflex agents: deciding on the action to take based only on the current
perception and not on the history of perceptions.
• Based on the condition-action rule:
(if (condition) action)
• Works if the environment is fully observable

; Table driven, Lisp version

(defun table_agent (percept)

26
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
(let ((action t))
(push percept percepts)
(setq action
(lookup percepts table))
action))

(defun reflex_agent (percept)

(let ((rule t) (state t) (action t))
(setq state (interpret percept))
(setq rule (match state))
(setq action (decision rule))
action))

# Table drives, Python version

percepts = []
table = {}
def table_agent (percept):
action = True
percepts.append(percept)
action = lookup(percepts, table)
return action

def reflex_agent (percept):

state = interpret(percept)
rule = match(state)
action = decision(rule)
return action

Model-Based Reflex Agents

• If the world is not fully observable, the agent must remember observations about
the parts of the environment it cannot currently observe.
• This usually requires an internal representation of the world (or internal state).
• Since this representation is a model of the world, we call this model-based agent.

; Reflex agents, Lisp version

(setq state t) ; the world model
(setq action nil) ; latest action
(defun model_reflex_agent (percept)
(let ((rule t))
(setq state
(update_state
state action percept))
(setq rule (match state))
(setq action (decision rule))
action))

27
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

# Reflex agents, Python version

state = True # the world model
action = False # latest action

def model_reflex_agent (percept)

state = update_state(state,
action,
percept)
rule = match(state)
action = decision(rule)
return action

Goal-Driven Agents

• The agent has a purpose and the action to be taken depends on the current state
and on what it tries to accomplish (the goal).
• In some cases the goal is easy to achieve. In others it involves planning, sifting
through a search space for possible solutions, developing a strategy.
• Utility-based agents: the agent is aware of a utility function that estimates how
close the current state is to the agent's goal.
• Choose actions so as to achieve a (given or computed) goal.
• A goal is a description of a desirable situation.
• Keeping track of the current state is often not enough − need to add goals to decide
which situations are good
• Deliberative instead of reactive.
• May have to consider long sequences of possible actions before deciding if goal is
achieved – involves consideration of the future, “what will happen if I do...?”

28
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

Learning Agents

• Agents capable of acquiring new competence through observations and actions.

• Components:
• learning element (modifies the performance element)
• performance element (selects actions)
• feedback element (critic)
• exploration element (problem generator).

Table-driven agents

• Table lookup of percept-action pairs mapping from every possible perceived state
to the optimal action for that state
• Problems
– Too big to generate and to store (Chess has about 10120 states, for
example)
– No knowledge of non-perceptual parts of the current state
– Not adaptive to changes in the environment; requires entire table to be
updated if changes occur
– Looping: Can’t make actions conditional on previous actions/states

Simple reflex agents

29
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit
• Rule-based reasoning to map from percepts to optimal action; each rule handles a
collection of perceived states
• Problems
– Still usually too big to generate and to store
– Still no knowledge of non-perceptual parts of state
– Still not adaptive to changes in the environment; requires collection of
rules to be updated if changes occur
– Still can’t make actions conditional on previous state

Utility-based agents

• When there are multiple possible alternatives, how to decide which one is best?
• A goal specifies a crude distinction between a happy and unhappy state, but often
need a more general performance measure that describes “degree of happiness.”
• Utility function U: State → Reals indicating a measure of success or happiness
when at a given state.
• Allows decisions comparing choice between conflicting goals, and choice
between likelihood of success and importance of goal (if achievement is
uncertain).

30
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

Agents with memory

• Encode “internal state” of the world to remember the past as contained in

earlier percepts.
• Needed because sensors do not usually give the entire state of the world at
each input, so perception of the environment is captured over time. “State” is
used to encode different "world states" that generate the same immediate
percept.
• Requires ability to represent change in the world; one possibility is to
represent just the latest state, but then can’t reason about hypothetical courses
of action.

31
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

Other Types of Agents

• Temporarily continuous - a continuously running process,

• Communicative agent - exchanging information with other agents to complete its
task.
• Mobile agent - capable of moving from one machine to another one (or from one
environment to another).
• Flexible agent - whose actions are not scripted.
• Character - an agent with conversation skills, personality, and even emotional
state
•

32
Artificial Intelligence Chapter1
Anurag Dixit

33