Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Search Problems

Lecturer: Dr. Igli Hakrama

University Metropolitan Tirana
(slides adapted from University of California, Berkeley)
Search
 Today
o Agents that Plan Ahead

o Search Problems

o Uninformed Search Methods

o Depth-First Search
o Breadth-First Search
o Uniform-Cost Search
Agents that Plan
 Reflex Agents

o Reflex agents:
o Choose action based on current percept
(and maybe memory)
o May have memory or a model of the world’s
current state
o Do not consider the future consequences of
their actions
o Consider how the world IS

o Can a reflex agent be rational?

Video of Demo Reflex Optimal
Video of Demo Reflex Odd
 Planning Agents

o Planning agents:
o Ask “what if”
o Decisions based on (hypothesized)
consequences of actions
o Must have a model of how the world evolves
in response to actions
o Must formulate a goal (test)
o Consider how the world WOULD BE

o Optimal vs. complete planning

o Planning vs. replanning

Video of Demo Replanning
Video of Demo Mastermind
Search Problems
 Search Problems
o A search problem consists of:

o A state space

o A successor function “N”,

(with actions, costs) 1.0

“E”, 1.0
o A start state and a goal test

o A solution is a sequence of actions (a plan)

which transforms the start state to a goal state
Search Problems Are Models
Example: Traveling in Romania

o State space:
o Cities
o Successor function:
o Roads: Go to adjacent city with
cost = distance
o Start state:
o Arad
o Goal test:
o Is state == Bucharest?

o Solution?
 What’s in a State Space?
The world state includes every last detail of the environment

A search state keeps only the details needed for planning (abstraction)

o Problem: Pathing o Problem: Eat-All-Dots

o States: (x,y) location o States: {(x,y), dot
o Actions: NSEW booleans}
o Successor: update location o Actions: NSEW
only o Successor: update
o Goal test: is (x,y)=END location and possibly a dot
boolean
o Goal test: dots all false
 State Space Sizes?

o World state:
o Agent positions: 120
o Food count: 30
o Ghost positions: 12
o Agent facing: NSEW

o How many
o World states?
120x(230)x(122)x4
o States for pathing?
120
o States for eat-all-dots?
120x(230)
 Quiz: Safe Passage

o Problem: eat all dots while keeping the ghosts perma-scared

o What does the state space have to specify?
o (agent position, dot booleans, power pellet booleans, remaining scared time)
State Space Graphs and Search Trees
 State Space Graphs

o State space graph: A mathematical

representation of a search problem
o Nodes are (abstracted) world configurations
o Arcs represent successors (action results)
o The goal test is a set of goal nodes (maybe only
one)

o In a state space graph, each state occurs

only once!

o We can rarely build this full graph in

memory (it’s too big), but it’s a useful idea
 State Space Graphs

o State space graph: A mathematical

representation of a search problem a G
o Nodes are (abstracted) world configurations b c
o Arcs represent successors (action results) e
o The goal test is a set of goal nodes (maybe only d f
one) S h
p q r
o In a search graph, each state occurs only
once!
Tiny search graph for a
o We can rarely build this full graph in tiny search problem
memory (it’s too big), but it’s a useful idea
 Search Trees
This is now / start

“N”, 1.0 “E”,

1.0 Possible futures

o A search tree:
o A “what if” tree of plans and their outcomes
o The start state is the root node
o Children correspond to successors
o Nodes show states, but correspond to PLANS that achieve those states
o For most problems, we can never actually build the whole tree
 State Space Graphs vs. Search Trees

State Space Graph Each NODE in

in the search Search Tree
tree is an S

a G entire PATH in d e p
b c the state b c e h r q
d
e
f
space graph. h r p q f
a a
S h We construct
p q f q c G
p r
q both on a
q c G
demand – and
a
we construct
as little as
possible.
Quiz: State Space Graphs vs. Search Trees

Consider this 4-state graph: How big is its search tree (from S)?

S G

Important: Lots of repeated structure in the search tree!

State Space Graphs vs. Search Trees

Consider this 4-state graph: How big is its search tree (from S)?

a s
a b
S G
b G a G
b a G b G

… …

Important: Lots of repeated structure in the search tree!

Tree Search
Search Example: Romania
 Searching with a Search Tree

o Search:
o Expand out potential plans (tree nodes)
o Maintain a fringe of partial plans under
consideration
o Try to expand as few tree nodes as possible
 General Tree Search

o Important ideas:
o Fringe
o Expansion
o Exploration strategy

o Main question: which fringe nodes to

explore?
Example: Tree Search
a G
b c
e
d f
S h
p q r
 Example: Tree Search
a G
b c
e
d f
S h
p q r

S s
sd
d e p
se
b c e h r q sp
a a h r p q f sdb
sdc
p q f q c G
sde
q c G a sdeh
a sder
Depth-First Search
 Depth-First Search
Strategy: expand a a G
b c
deepest node first
e
d f
Implementation: S h
Fringe is a LIFO stack p q r

d e p
b c e h r q
a a h r p q f
p q f q c G

q c G a
a
Search Algorithm Properties
 Search Algorithm Properties
o Complete: Guaranteed to find a solution if one exists?
o Optimal: Guaranteed to find the least cost path?
o Time complexity?
o Space complexity? b 1 node
… b
o Cartoon of search tree: nodes
b2
o b is the branching factor m tiers nodes
o m is the maximum depth
o solutions at various depths
bm nodes
o Number of nodes in entire tree?
o 1 + b + b2 + …. bm = O(bm)
 Depth-First Search (DFS) Properties
o What nodes DFS expand?
o Some left prefix of the tree. 1 node
o Could process the whole tree!
b
… b nodes
o If m is finite, takes time O(bm) b2 nodes
m tiers
o How much space does the fringe take?
o Only has siblings on path to root, so O(bm)
o Is it complete?
o m could be infinite, so only if we prevent bm nodes
cycles (more later)
o Is it optimal?
o No, it finds the “leftmost” solution,
regardless of depth or cost
Breadth-First Search
 Breadth-First Search
Strategy: expand a G
b c
a shallowest
d e
node first f
S h
Implementation: p q r
Fringe is a FIFO
queue S

d e p
Sear q
b c e h r
ch
a a h r p q f
Tiers
p q f q c G

q c G a
a
 Breadth-First Search (BFS) Properties
o What nodes does BFS expand?
o Processes all nodes above shallowest 1 node
solution b
… b
o Let depth of shallowest solution be s s tiers nodes
b2
o Search takes time O(bs)
nodes
bs nodes
o How much space does the fringe
take?
o Has roughly the last tier, so O(bs) bm nodes

o Is it complete?
o s must be finite if a solution exists, so yes!

o Is it optimal?
o Only if costs are all 1 (more on costs later)
Quiz: DFS vs BFS
 Quiz: DFS vs BFS

o When will BFS outperform DFS?

o When will DFS outperform BFS?

Video of Demo Maze Water DFS/BFS (part 1)
Video of Demo Maze Water DFS/BFS (part 2)
 Iterative Deepening
o Idea: get DFS’s space advantage with
BFS’s time / shallow-solution
b
advantages …
o Run a DFS with depth limit 1. If no
solution…
o Run a DFS with depth limit 2. If no
solution…
o Run a DFS with depth limit 3. …..

o Isn’t that wastefully redundant?

o Generally most work happens in the lowest
level searched, so not so bad!
 Cost-Sensitive Search
GOAL
a
2 2
b c
3
2
1 8
2 e
3 d f
9 8 2
START
h
1 4 2
p 4 r
1 q
5
BFS finds the shortest path in terms of number of actions.
It does not find the least-cost path. We will now cover
a similar algorithm which does find the least-cost path.
Uniform Cost Search
 Uniform Cost Search
2 a G
Strategy: expand a b c
cheapest node first: 1 8 2
2 e
3 d f
Fringe is a priority S 9 h 8 2 1
queue (priority: 1 p q r
cumulative cost) 15
S 0
d 3 e 9 p 1

b 4 c 11 e 5 h 17 r 11 q 16
Cost a 6 a h 13 r 7 p q f
contour
s p q f 8 q c G

q 11 c G 10 a
a
 Uniform Cost Search (UCS) Properties
o What nodes does UCS expand?
o Processes all nodes with cost less than cheapest
solution! b c1
…
o If that solution costs C* and arcs cost at least  , then the c2
“effective depth” is roughly C*/ C*/
“tiers” c3
o Takes time O(bC*/) (exponential in effective depth)

o How much space does the fringe take?

o Has roughly the last tier, so O(bC*/)

o Is it complete?
o Assuming best solution has a finite cost and minimum
arc cost is positive, yes!

o Is it optimal?
o Yes! (Proof next lecture via A*)
 Uniform Cost Issues
o Remember: UCS explores increasing
cost contours … c1
c2
c3

o The good: UCS is complete and

optimal!

o The bad:
o Explores options in every “direction”
o No information about goal location Start Goal

o We’ll fix that soon!

Video of Demo Empty UCS
Video of Demo Maze with Deep/Shallow Water --- DFS, BFS, or UCS? (part
1)
Video of Demo Maze with Deep/Shallow Water --- DFS, BFS, or UCS? (part
2)
Video of Demo Maze with Deep/Shallow Water --- DFS, BFS, or UCS? (part
3)
 The One Queue
o All these search algorithms are
the same except for fringe
strategies
o Conceptually, all fringes are priority
queues (i.e. collections of nodes
with attached priorities)
o Practically, for DFS and BFS, you
can avoid the log(n) overhead from
an actual priority queue, by using
stacks and queues
o Can even code one implementation
that takes a variable queuing object
 Search and Models

o Search operates over

models of the world
o The agent doesn’t
actually try all the plans
out in the real world!
o Planning is all “in
simulation”
o Your search is only as
good as your models…
Search Gone Wrong?