MODULE-1

Introduction – Foundations of AI, the History of AI –Intelligent Agent – Agent

and Environment, Good Behaviour: The Concept of Rationality, Nature of
Environments, Structure of Agents- Problem Solving Agents -Example
Problems.

AIM & OBJECTIVES

To understand some fundamentals of AI and algorithms required to

produce AI systems.

PRE- REQUISITE: Basic knowledge of Computer Architecture.

In today's world, technology is growing very fast, and we are getting

in touch with different new technologies day by day.

Here, one of the booming technologies of computer science is

Artificial Intelligence which is ready to create a new revolution in the
world by making intelligent machines. The Artificial Intelligence is
now all around us. It is currently working with a variety of subfields,
ranging from general to specific, such as self-driving cars, playing
chess, proving theorems, playing music, Painting, etc.

AI is one of the fascinating and universal fields of Computer science

which has a great scope in future. AI holds a tendency to cause a
machine to work as a human.
Artificial Intelligence is composed of two
words Artificial and Intelligence, where Artificial defines "man-
made," and intelligence defines "thinking power", hence AI means "a
man-made thinking power."

So, we can define AI as:

"It is a branch of computer science by which we can create

intelligent machines which can behave like a human, think like
humans, and able to make decisions."

Artificial Intelligence exists when a machine can have human based

skills such as learning, reasoning, and solving problems.

With Artificial Intelligence you do not need to preprogram a machine

to do some work, despite that you can create a machine with
programmed algorithms which can work with own intelligence, and
that is the awesomeness of AI.
It is believed that AI is not a new technology, and some people says
that as per Greek myth, there were Mechanical men in early days
which can work and behave like humans.

Why Artificial Intelligence?

Before Learning about Artificial Intelligence, we should know that

what is the importance of AI and why should we learn it.

Following are some main reasons to learn about AI:

o With the help of AI, you can create such software or devices
which can solve real-world problems very easily and with
accuracy such as health issues, marketing, traffic issues, etc.
o With the help of AI, you can create your personal virtual
Assistant, such as Cortana, Google Assistant, Siri, etc.
o With the help of AI, you can build such Robots which can work
in an environment where survival of humans can be at risk.
o AI opens a path for other new technologies, new devices, and
new Opportunities.
Goals of Artificial Intelligence

Following are the main goals of Artificial Intelligence:

1. Replicate human intelligence

2. Solve Knowledge-intensive tasks
3. An intelligent connection of perception and action
4. Building a machine which can perform tasks that requires
human intelligence such as:
o Proving a theorem
o Playing chess
o Plan some surgical operation
o Driving a car in traffic
5. Creating some system which can exhibit intelligent behavior,
learn new things by itself, demonstrate, explain, and can advise
to its user.

What Comprises to Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is not just a part of computer science even it's

so vast and requires lots of other factors which can contribute to it.
To create the AI first we should know that how intelligence is
composed, so the Intelligence is an intangible part of our brain which
is a combination of Reasoning, learning, problem-solving perception,
language understanding, etc.

To achieve the above factors for a machine or software Artificial

Intelligence requires the following discipline:
o Mathematics
o Biology
o Psychology
o Sociology
o Computer Science
o Neurons Study
o Statistics
Advantages of Artificial Intelligence

Following are some main advantages of Artificial Intelligence:

o High Accuracy with less error: AI machines or systems are

prone to less errors and high accuracy as it takes decisions as
per pre-experience or information.
o High-Speed: AI systems can be of very high-speed and fast-
decision making; because of that AI systems can beat a chess
champion in the Chess game.
o High reliability: AI machines are highly reliable and can perform
the same action multiple times with high accuracy.
o Useful for risky areas: AI machines can be helpful in situations
such as defusing a bomb, exploring the ocean floor, where to
employ a human can be risky.
o Digital Assistant: AI can be very useful to provide digital
assistant to the users such as AI technology is currently used
by various E-commerce websites to show the products as per
customer requirement.
o Useful as a public utility: AI can be very useful for public
utilities such as a self-driving car which can make our journey
safer and hassle-free, facial recognition for security purpose,
Natural language processing to communicate with the human
in human-language, etc.

Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence

Every technology has some disadvantages, and the same goes for
Artificial intelligence. Being so advantageous technology still, it has
some disadvantages which we need to keep in our mind while
creating an AI system.

Following are the disadvantages of AI:

o High Cost: The hardware and software requirement of AI is very

costly as it requires lots of maintenance to meet current world
requirements.
o Can't think out of the box: Even we are making smarter
machines with AI, but still they cannot work out of the box, as
the robot will only do that work for which they are trained, or
programmed.
o No feelings and emotions: AI machines can be an outstanding
performer, but still it does not have the feeling so it cannot
 make any kind of emotional attachment with human, and may
sometime be harmful for users if the proper care is not taken.
o Increase dependency on machines: With the increment of
technology, people are getting more dependent on devices and
hence they are losing their mental capabilities.
o No Original Creativity: As humans are so creative and can
imagine some new ideas but still AI machines cannot beat this
power of human intelligence and cannot be creative and
imaginative.

Application of AI

Artificial Intelligence has various applications in today's society.

It is becoming essential for today's time because it can solve complex

problems with an efficient way in multiple industries, such as
Healthcare, entertainment, finance, education, etc.
AI is making our daily life more comfortable and fast.

Following are some sectors which have the application of Artificial

Intelligence:
1. AI in Astronomy
o Artificial Intelligence can be very useful to solve complex
universe problems. AI technology can be helpful for
understanding the universe such as how it works, origin, etc.

2. AI in Healthcare
o In the last, five to ten years, AI becoming more advantageous for
the healthcare industry and going to have a significant impact
on this industry.

o Healthcare Industries are applying AI to make a better and

faster diagnosis than humans. AI can help doctors with
diagnoses and can inform when patients are worsening so that
medical help can reach to the patient before hospitalization.

3. AI in Gaming
o AI can be used for gaming purpose. The AI machines can play
strategic games like chess, where the machine needs to think of
a large number of possible places.

4. AI in Finance
o AI and finance industries are the best matches for each other.
The finance industry is implementing automation, chatbot,
adaptive intelligence, algorithm trading, and machine learning
into financial processes.

5. AI in Data Security
o The security of data is crucial for every company and cyber-
attacks are growing very rapidly in the digital world. AI can be
used to make your data more safe and secure. Some examples
such as AEG bot, AI2 Platform, are used to determine software
bug and cyber-attacks in a better way.

6. AI in Social Media
o Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat
contain billions of user profiles, which need to be stored and
managed in a very efficient way. AI can organize and manage
massive amounts of data. AI can analyze lots of data to identify
the latest trends, hashtag, and requirement of different users.
7. AI in Travel & Transport
o AI is becoming highly demanding for travel industries. AI is
capable of doing various travel related works such as from
making travel arrangement to suggesting the hotels, flights, and
best routes to the customers. Travel industries are using AI-
powered chatbots which can make human-like interaction with
customers for better and fast response.

8. AI in Automotive Industry
o Some Automotive industries are using AI to provide virtual
assistant to their user for better performance. Such as Tesla
has introduced TeslaBot, an intelligent virtual assistant.

o Various Industries are currently working for developing self-

driven cars which can make your journey more safe and secure.

9. AI in Robotics:
o Artificial Intelligence has a remarkable role in Robotics. Usually,
general robots are programmed such that they can perform
some repetitive task, but with the help of AI, we can create
intelligent robots which can perform tasks with their own
experiences without pre-programmed.

o Humanoid Robots are best examples for AI in robotics, recently

the intelligent Humanoid robot named as Erica and Sophia has
been developed which can talk and behave like humans.

10. AI in Entertainment
o We are currently using some AI based applications in our daily
life with some entertainment services such as Netflix or
Amazon. With the help of ML/AI algorithms, these services
show the recommendations for programs or shows.

11. AI in Agriculture
o Agriculture is an area which requires various resources, labor,
money, and time for best result. Now a day's agriculture is
becoming digital, and AI is emerging in this field. Agriculture is
applying AI as agriculture robotics, solid and crop monitoring,
predictive analysis. AI in agriculture can be very helpful for
farmers.
12. AI in E-commerce
o AI is providing a competitive edge to the e-commerce industry,
and it is becoming more demanding in the e-commerce
business. AI is helping shoppers to discover associated products
with recommended size, color, or even brand.

13. AI in education:
o AI can automate grading so that the tutor can have more time
to teach. AI chatbot can communicate with students as a
teaching assistant.
o AI in the future can be work as a personal virtual tutor for
students, which will be accessible easily at any time and any
place.

History of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is not a new word and not a new technology for
researchers. This technology is much older than you would imagine.
Even there are the myths of Mechanical men in Ancient Greek and
Egyptian Myths. Following are some milestones in the history of AI
which defines the journey from the AI generation to till date
development.
Maturation of Artificial Intelligence (1943-1952)

o Year 1943: The first work which is now recognized as AI was

done by Warren McCulloch and Walter pits in 1943. They
proposed a model of artificial neurons.
o Year 1949: Donald Hebb demonstrated an updating rule for
modifying the connection strength between neurons. His rule is
now called Hebbian learning.
o Year 1950: The Alan Turing who was an English mathematician
and pioneered Machine learning in 1950. Alan Turing
publishes "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in which he
proposed a test. The test can check the machine's ability to
exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to human intelligence,
called a Turing test.

The birth of Artificial Intelligence (1952-1956)

o Year 1955: An Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon created the

"first artificial intelligence program ―Which was named as "Logic
Theorist". This program had proved 38 of 52 Mathematics
theorems, and find new and more elegant proofs for some
theorems.
o Year 1956: The word "Artificial Intelligence" first adopted by
American Computer scientist John McCarthy at the Dartmouth
Conference. For the first time, AI coined as an academic field.

At that time high-level computer languages such as FORTRAN, LISP,

or COBOL were invented. And the enthusiasm for AI was very high at
that time.
The golden years-Early enthusiasm (1956-1974)

o Year 1966: The researchers emphasized developing algorithms

which can solve mathematical problems. Joseph Weizenbaum
created the first chatbot in 1966, which was named as ELIZA.

o Year 1972: The first intelligent humanoid robot was built in

Japan which was named as WABOT-1.
The first AI winter (1974-1980)

o The duration between years 1974 to 1980 was the first AI

winter duration. AI winter refers to the time period where
computer scientist dealt with a severe shortage of funding from
government for AI researches.

o During AI winters, an interest of publicity on artificial

intelligence was decreased.

A boom of AI (1980-1987)

o Year 1980: After AI winter duration, AI came back with "Expert

System". Expert systems were programmed that emulate the
decision-making ability of a human expert.

o In the Year 1980, the first national conference of the American

Association of Artificial Intelligence was held at Stanford
University.

The second AI winter (1987-1993)

o The duration between the years 1987 to 1993 was the second AI
Winter duration.

o Again Investors and government stopped in funding for AI

research as due to high cost but not efficient result. The expert
system such as XCON was very cost effective.

The emergence of intelligent agents (1993-2011)

o Year 1997: In the year 1997, IBM Deep Blue beats world chess
champion, Gary Kasparov, and became the first computer to
beat a world chess champion.
o Year 2002: for the first time, AI entered the home in the form of
Roomba, a vacuum cleaner.
o Year 2006: AI came in the Business world till the year 2006.
Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix also started using
AI.
Deep learning, big data and artificial general intelligence (2011-
present)

o Year 2011: In the year 2011, IBM's Watson won jeopardy, a quiz
show, where it had to solve the complex questions as well as
riddles. Watson had proved that it could understand natural
language and can solve tricky questions quickly.

o Year 2012: Google has launched an Android app feature "Google

now", which was able to provide information to the user as a
prediction.

o Year 2014: In the year 2014, Chatbot "Eugene Goostman" won

a competition in the infamous "Turing test."

o Year 2018: The "Project Debater" from IBM debated on complex

topics with two master debaters and also performed extremely
well.

o Google has demonstrated an AI program "Duplex" which was a

virtual assistant and which had taken hairdresser appointment
on call and lady on other side didn't notice that she was talking
with the machine.

Now AI has developed to a remarkable level. The concept of Deep

learning, big data, and data science are now trending like a boom.
Nowadays companies like Google, Facebook, IBM, and Amazon are
working with AI and creating amazing devices.

The future of Artificial Intelligence is inspiring and will come with

high intelligence.

Types of Artificial Intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence can be divided in various types, there are

mainly two types of main categorization which are based on
capabilities and based on functionally of AI.
Following is flow diagram which explains the types of AI.

AI type-1: Based on Capabilities

1. Weak AI or Narrow AI:

o Narrow AI is a type of AI which is able to perform a dedicated

task with intelligence. The most common and currently
available AI is Narrow AI in the world of Artificial Intelligence.
o Narrow AI cannot perform beyond its field or limitations, as it is
only trained for one specific task. Hence it is also termed as
weak AI. Narrow AI can fail in unpredictable ways if it goes
beyond its limits.
o Apple Siriis a good example of Narrow AI, but it operates with a
limited pre-defined range of functions.
o IBM's Watson supercomputer also comes under Narrow AI, as it
uses an Expert system approach combined with Machine
learning and natural language processing.
o Some Examples of Narrow AI are playing chess, purchasing
suggestions on e-commerce site, self-driving cars, speech
recognition, and image recognition.

2. General AI:
o General AI is a type of intelligence which could perform any
intellectual task with efficiency like a human.
o The idea behind the general AI to make such a system which
could be smarter and think like a human by its own.
o Currently, there is no such system exist which could come
under general AI and can perform any task as perfect as a
human.
 o The worldwide researchers are now focused on developing
machines with General AI.
o As systems with general AI are still under research, and it will
take lots of efforts and time to develop such systems.

3. Super AI:
o Super AI is a level of Intelligence of Systems at which machines
could surpass human intelligence, and can perform any task
better than human with cognitive properties. It is an outcome of
general AI.
o Some key characteristics of strong AI include capability include
the ability to think, to reason, solve the puzzle, make
judgments, plan, learn, and communicate by its own.
o Super AI is still a hypothetical concept of Artificial Intelligence.
Development of such systems in real is still world changing
task.

Artificial Intelligence type-2:

Based on functionality

1. Reactive Machines
o Purely reactive machines are the most basic types of Artificial
Intelligence.
o Such AI systems do not store memories or past experiences for
future actions.
o These machines only focus on current scenarios and react on it
as per possible best action.
o IBM's Deep Blue system is an example of reactive machines.
o Google's AlphaGo is also an example of reactive machines.
2. Limited Memory
o Limited memory machines can store past experiences or some
data for a short period of time.
o These machines can use stored data for a limited time period
only.
o Self-driving cars are one of the best examples of Limited
Memory systems. These cars can store recent speed of nearby
cars, the distance of other cars, speed limit, and other
information to navigate the road.

3. Theory of Mind
o Theory of Mind AI should understand the human emotions,
people, beliefs, and be able to interact socially like humans.
o This type of AI machines is still not developed, but researchers
are making lots of efforts and improvement for developing such
AI machines.

4. Self-Awareness
o Self-awareness AI is the future of Artificial Intelligence. These
machines will be super intelligent, and will have their own
consciousness, sentiments, and self-awareness.
o These machines will be smarter than human mind.
o Self-Awareness AI does not exist in reality still and it is a
hypothetical concept.

Types of AI Agents

Agents can be grouped into five classes based on their degree of

perceived intelligence and capability. All these agents can improve
their performance and generate better action over the time.

These are given below:

o Simple Reflex Agent
o Model-based reflex agent
o Goal-based agents
o Utility-based agent
o Learning agent
1. Simple Reflex agent:

o The Simple reflex agents are the simplest agents. These agents
take decisions on the basis of the current percepts and ignore
the rest of the percept history.
o These agents only succeed in the fully observable environment.
o The Simple reflex agent does not consider any part of percepts
history during their decision and action process.
o The Simple reflex agent works on Condition-action rule, which
means it maps the current state to action. Such as a Room
Cleaner agent, it works only if there is dirt in the room.

o Problems for the simple reflex agent design approach:

o They have very limited intelligence
o They do not have knowledge of non-perceptual parts of the
current state
o Mostly too big to generate and to store.
o Not adaptive to changes in the environment.
2. Model-based reflex agent

o The Model-based agent can work in a partially observable

environment, and track the situation.

o A model-based agent has two important factors:

o Model: It is knowledge about "how things happen in the
world," so it is called a Model-based agent.
o Internal State: It is a representation of the current state
based on percept history.

o These agents have the model, "which is knowledge of the world"

and based on the model they perform actions.

o Updating the agent state requires information about:

a. How the world evolves
b. How the agent's action affects the world.
3. Goal-based agents

o The knowledge of the current state environment is not always

sufficient to decide for an agent to what to do.
o The agent needs to know its goal which describes desirable
situations.
o Goal-based agents expand the capabilities of the model-based
agent by having the "goal" information.
o They choose an action, so that they can achieve the goal.
o These agents may have to consider a long sequence of possible
actions before deciding whether the goal is achieved or not.
Such considerations of different scenario are called searching
and planning, which makes an agent proactive.

4. Utility-based agents
o These agents are similar to the goal-based agent but provide an
extra component of utility measurement which makes them
different by providing a measure of success at a given state.
o Utility-based agent act based not only goals but also the best
way to achieve the goal.
o The Utility-based agent is useful when there are multiple
possible alternatives, and an agent has to choose in order to
perform the best action.
o The utility function maps each state to a real number to check
how efficiently each action achieves the goals.
5. Learning Agents

o A learning agent in AI is the type of agent which can learn from

its past experiences, or it has learning capabilities.
o It starts to act with basic knowledge and then able to act and
adapt automatically through learning.
o A learning agent has mainly four conceptual components,
which are:
a. Learning element: It is responsible for making
improvements by learning from environment
b. Critic: Learning element takes feedback from critic which
describes that how well the agent is doing with respect to a
fixed performance standard.
c. Performance element: It is responsible for selecting
external action
d. Problem generator: This component is responsible for
suggesting actions that will lead to new and informative
experiences.

o Hence, learning agents are able to learn, analyze performance,

and look for new ways to improve the performance.
Agents in Artificial Intelligence

An AI system can be defined as the study of the rational agent and

its environment. The agents sense the environment through sensors
and act on their environment through actuators. An AI agent can
have mental properties such as knowledge, belief, intention, etc.

What is an Agent?

An agent can be anything that perceive its environment through

sensors and act upon that environment through actuators.

An Agent runs in the cycle of perceiving, thinking, and acting. An

agent can be:
o Human-Agent: A human agent has eyes, ears, and other organs
which work for sensors and hand, legs, vocal tract work for
actuators.
o Robotic Agent: A robotic agent can have cameras, infrared range
finder, NLP for sensors and various motors for actuators.
o Software Agent: Software agent can have keystrokes, file
contents as sensory input and act on those inputs and display
output on the screen.

Hence the world around us is full of agents such as thermostat,

cellphone, camera, and even we are also agents.
Before moving forward, we should first know about sensors,
effectors, and actuators.
Sensor: Sensor is a device which detects the change in the
environment and sends the information to other electronic devices.
An agent observes its environment through sensors.
Actuators: Actuators are the component of machines that converts
energy into motion. The actuators are only responsible for moving
and controlling a system. An actuator can be an electric motor,
gears, rails, etc.

Effectors: Effectors are the devices which affect the environment.

Effectors can be legs, wheels, arms, fingers, wings, fins, and display
screen.

Intelligent Agents:

An intelligent agent is autonomous entities which act upon an

environment using sensors and actuators for achieving goals. An
intelligent agent may learn from the environment to achieve their
goals. A thermostat is an example of an intelligent agent.
Following are the main four rules for an AI agent:

o Rule 1: An AI agent must have the ability to perceive the

environment.
o Rule 2: The observation must be used to make decisions.
o Rule 3: Decision should result in an action.
o Rule 4: The action taken by an AI agent must be a rational
action.
Rational Agent:

A rational agent is an agent which has clear preference, models

uncertainty, and acts in a way to maximize its performance measure
with all possible actions.

A rational agent is said to perform the right things. AI is about

creating rational agents to use for game theory and decision theory
for various real-world scenarios.

For an AI agent, the rational action is most important because in AI

reinforcement learning algorithm, for each best possible action, agent
gets the positive reward and for each wrong action, an agent gets a
negative reward.

Rationality:

The rationality of an agent is measured by its performance measure.

Rationality can be judged on the basis of following points:
o Performance measure which defines the success criterion.
o Agent prior knowledge of its environment.
o Best possible actions that an agent can perform.
o The sequence of percepts.

Structure of an AI Agent

The task of AI is to design an agent program which implements the

agent function. The structure of an intelligent agent is a combination
of architecture and agent program. It can be viewed as:

Agent = Architecture + Agent program

Following are the main three terms involved in the structure of an AI

agent:
Architecture: Architecture is machinery that an AI agent executes on.

Agent Function: Agent function is used to map a percept to an

action.
f:P* → A

Agent program: Agent program is an implementation of agent

function.
An agent program executes on the physical architecture to produce
function f.

PEAS Representation

PEAS is a type of model on which an AI agent works upon. When we

define an AI agent or rational agent, then we can group its properties
under PEAS representation model.

It is made up of four words:

o P: Performance measure
o E: Environment
o A: Actuators
o S: Sensors

Here performance measure is the objective for the success of an

agent's behavior.

PEAS for self-driving cars:

Let's suppose a self-driving car then PEAS representation will be:

Performance: Safety, time, legal drive, comfort

Environment: Roads, other vehicles, road signs, pedestrian

 Actuators: Steering, accelerator, brake, signal, horn

Sensors: Camera, GPS, speedometer, odometer, accelerometer,

sonar.

Example of Agents with their PEAS representation

Performance
Agent Environment Actuators Sensors
measure
Healthy
Patient
Medical patient Tests Keyboard
Hospital
Diagnose Minimized Treatments (Entry of symptoms)
Staff
cost
Room
Camera
Cleanness Table Wheels
Dirt detection sensor
Vacuum Efficiency Wood floor Brushes
Cliff sensor
Cleaner Battery life Carpet Vacuum
Bump Sensor
Security Various Extractor
Infrared Wall Sensor
obstacles
Conveyor
Part Percentage of Jointed
belt with Camera
picking parts in Arms
parts, Joint angle sensors.
Robot correct bins. Hand
Bins

Agent Environment in AI

An environment is everything in the world which surrounds the

agent, but it is not a part of an agent itself. An environment can be
described as a situation in which an agent is present.

The environment is where agent lives, operate and provide the agent
with something to sense and act upon it. An environment is mostly
said to be non-feministic.
Features of Environment

As per Russell and Norvig, an environment can have various features

from the point of view of an agent:

1. Fully observable vs Partially Observable

2. Static vs Dynamic
3. Discrete vs Continuous
4. Deterministic vs Stochastic
5. Single-agent vs Multi-agent
6. Episodic vs sequential
7. Known vs Unknown
8. Accessible vs Inaccessible

1. Fully observable vs Partially Observable:

o If an agent sensor can sense or access the complete state of an
environment at each point of time then it is a fully
observable environment, else it is partially observable.
o A fully observable environment is easy as there is no need to
maintain the internal state to keep track history of the world.
o An agent with no sensors in all environments then such an
environment is called as unobservable.

2. Deterministic vs Stochastic:
o If an agent's current state and selected action can completely
determine the next state of the environment, then such
environment is called a deterministic environment.
o A stochastic environment is random in nature and cannot be
determined completely by an agent.
o In a deterministic, fully observable environment, agent does not
need to worry about uncertainty.

3. Episodic vs Sequential:
o In an episodic environment, there is a series of one-shot
actions, and only the current percept is required for the action.
o However, in Sequential environment, an agent requires memory
of past actions to determine the next best actions.
4. Single-agent vs Multi-agent
o If only one agent is involved in an environment, and operating
by itself then such an environment is called single agent
environment.
o However, if multiple agents are operating in an environment,
then such an environment is called a multi-agent environment.
o The agent design problems in the multi-agent environment are
different from single agent environment.

5. Static vs Dynamic:
o If the environment can change itself while an agent is
deliberating then such environment is called a dynamic
environment else it is called a static environment.
o Static environments are easy to deal because an agent does not
need to continue looking at the world while deciding for an
action.
o However for dynamic environment, agents need to keep looking
at the world at each action.
o Taxi driving is an example of a dynamic environment whereas
Crossword puzzles are an example of a static environment.

6. Discrete vs Continuous:
o If in an environment there are a finite number of percepts and
actions that can be performed within it, then such an
environment is called a discrete environment else it is called
continuous environment.
o A chess gamecomes under discrete environment as there is a
finite number of moves that can be performed.
o A self-driving car is an example of a continuous environment.

7. Known vs Unknown
o Known and unknown are not actually a feature of an
environment, but it is an agent's state of knowledge to perform
an action.
o In a known environment, the results for all actions are known
to the agent. While in unknown environment, agent needs to
learn how it works in order to perform an action.
o It is quite possible that a known environment to be partially
observable and an Unknown environment to be fully observable.
8. Accessible vs Inaccessible
o If an agent can obtain complete and accurate information about
the state's environment, then such an environment is called an
Accessible environment else it is called inaccessible.
o An empty room whose state can be defined by its temperature is
an example of an accessible environment.
o Information about an event on earth is an example of
Inaccessible environment.

Turing Test in AI

In 1950, Alan Turing introduced a test to check whether a machine

can think like a human or not, this test is known as the Turing Test.
In this test, Turing proposed that the computer can be said to be an
intelligent if it can mimic human response under specific conditions.

Turing Test was introduced by Turing in his 1950 paper, "Computing

Machinery and Intelligence," which considered the question, "Can
Machine think?"

The Turing test is based on a party game "Imitation game," with some
modifications. This game involves three players in which one player
is Computer, another player is human responder, and the third
player is a human Interrogator, who is isolated from other two
players and his job is to find that which player is machine among
two of them.

Consider, Player A is a computer, Player B is human, and Player C is

an interrogator. Interrogator is aware that one of them is machine,
but he needs to identify this on the basis of questions and their
responses.

The conversation between all players is via keyboard and screen so

the result would not depend on the machine's ability to convert
words as speech.

The test result does not depend on each correct answer, but only
how closely its responses like a human answer. The computer is
permitted to do everything possible to force a wrong identification by
the interrogator.
The questions and answers can be like:

Interrogator: Are you a computer?

PlayerA (Computer): No

Interrogator: Multiply two large numbers such as

(256896489*456725896)

Player A: Long pause and give the wrong answer.

In this game, if an interrogator would not be able to identify which is

a machine and which is human, then the computer passes the test
successfully, and the machine is said to be intelligent and can think
like a human.

"In 1991, the New York businessman Hugh Loebner announces the
prize competition, offering a $100,000 prize for the first computer to
pass the Turing test. However, no AI program to till date, come close
to passing an undiluted Turing test".

Chatbots to attempt the Turing test:

ELIZA: ELIZA was a Natural language processing computer program

created by Joseph Weizenbaum. It was created to demonstrate the
ability of communication between machine and humans. It was one
of the first chatterbots, which has attempted the Turing Test.
Parry: Parry was a chatterbot created by Kenneth Colby in 1972.
Parry was designed to simulate a person with Paranoid schizophrenia
(most common chronic mental disorder). Parry was described as
"ELIZA with attitude." Parry was tested using a variation of the
Turing Test in the early 1970s.

Eugene Goostman: Eugene Goostman was a chatbot developed in

Saint Petersburg in 2001. This bot has competed in the various
number of Turing Test. In June 2012, at an event, Goostman won
the competition promoted as largest-ever Turing test content, in
which it has convinced 29% of judges that it was a human.
Goostman resembled as a 13-year old virtual boy.

The Chinese Room Argument:

There were many philosophers who really disagreed with the

complete concept of Artificial Intelligence. The most famous
argument in this list was "Chinese Room."

In the year 1980, John Searle presented "Chinese Room" thought

experiment, in his paper "Mind, Brains, and Program," which was
against the validity of Turing's Test. According to his argument,
"Programming a computer may make it to understand a language,
but it will not produce a real understanding of language or
consciousness in a computer."
He argued that Machine such as ELIZA and Parry could easily pass
the Turing test by manipulating keywords and symbol, but they had
no real understanding of language.

So it cannot be described as "thinking" capability of a machine such

as a human.

Features required for a machine to pass the Turing test:

o Natural language processing: NLP is required to communicate

with Interrogator in general human language like English.
o Knowledge representation: To store and retrieve information
during the test.
o Automated reasoning: To use the previously stored information
for answering the questions.
o Machine learning: To adapt new changes and can detect
generalized patterns.
o Vision (For total Turing test): To recognize the interrogator
actions and other objects during a test.
o Motor Control (For total Turing test): To act upon objects if
requested.

MCQ

1. Who is known as the -Father of AI"?

a. Fisher Ada
b. Alan Turing
c. John McCarthy
d. Allen Newell

2. The state-space of the problem includes

a. Initial state
b. Action
c. Transition model
d. All the above

3. An AI system is composed of
a. Agent
b. Environment
c. Agent and Environment
d. None of the above

4. Agents can be grouped into classes based on their degree of

perceived

a. Intelligence
b. Capability
c. Intelligence and capability
d. Performance

5. Which agent can work in a partially observable environment,

and track the situation?

a) Simple Reflex Agent

b) Model-based reflex agent
c) Goal-based agents
d) Utility-based agent
6. Which type of agent acts not only for goals but also for the best
way to achieve the goal?

a. Simple Reflex Agent

b. Model-based reflex agent
c. Goal-based agents
d. Utility-based agent

7. Which agent is useful when there are multiple possible

alternatives?

a. Simple Reflex Agent

b. Model-based reflex agent
c. Goal-based agents
d. Utility-based agent

8. Which type of agent works on Condition-action rule?

a. Simple Reflex Agent

b. Model-based reflex agent
c. Goal-based agents
d. Utility-based agent

9. Rationality can be judged on the basis of

a. Performance measure which defines the success criterion.

b. Agent prior knowledge of its environment.
c. The sequence of percepts.
d. All the above

10. Which device detects the change in the environment and sends
the information to other electronic devices?

a. Sensors
b. Actuators
c. Effectors
d. All the above
CONCLUSION:

Upon completion of this, Students should be able to

To understand the some fundamentals of AI and AI systems

REFERENCES

1. David Poole, Alan Mackworth, Randy Goebel, ―Computational

Intelligence: a Logical Approach‖, Oxford University Press, 2004.

2. G. Luger, ―Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for

Complex Problem Solving‖, Fourth Edition, Pearson Education,
2002.

ASSIGNMENT

1. Define intelligent agent.

2. Explain about the foundations of AI.
3. Explain the types of Agent and its environment
4. Explain the structure of agents.
5. Explain about the problem solving agent.
 MODULE - 2
Uninformed Searching strategies-Breadth First Search, Depth First
search, Depth limited search, Iterative deepening search,
Bidirectional Search - Avoiding repeated States - Searching with
Partial information –Informed search strategies – Greedy Best First
Search-A* Search-Heuristic Functions Local Search Algorithms for
Optimization Problems-Local search in Continuous Spaces

AIM & OBJECTIVES

 To understand the fundamental concepts of Propagation.

 To understand fading techniques and its types.
 To understand about Antenna Diversity

PRE- REQUISITE: Basic knowledge of Wireless Communication

Search Algorithms in Artificial Intelligence

Search algorithms are one of the most important areas of

Artificial Intelligence. This topic will explain all about the search
algorithms in AI.

Problem-solving agents:

In Artificial Intelligence, Search techniques are universal problem-

solving methods. Rational agents or Problem-solving agents in AI
mostly used these search strategies or algorithms to solve a specific
problem and provide the best result. Problem-solving agents are the
goal-based agents and use atomic representation. In this topic, we
will learn various problem-solving search algorithms.

Search Algorithm Terminologies:

o Search: Searching is a step by step procedure to solve a search-

problem in a given search space. A search problem can have
three main factors:

a. Search Space: Search space represents a set of possible

solutions, which a system may have.
 b. Start State: It is a state from where agent begins the
search.

c. Goal test: It is a function which observe the current state

and returns whether the goal state is achieved or not.

o Search tree: A tree representation of search problem is called

Search tree. The root of the search tree is the root node which is
corresponding to the initial state.

o Actions: It gives the description of all the available actions to

the agent.

o Transition model: A description of what each action do, can be

represented as a transition model.

o Path Cost: It is a function which assigns a numeric cost to each

path.

o Solution: It is an action sequence which leads from the start

node to the goal node.

o Optimal Solution: If a solution has the lowest cost among all

solutions.

Properties of Search Algorithms:

Following are the four essential properties of search algorithms to

compare the efficiency of these algorithms:

Completeness: A search algorithm is said to be complete if it

guarantees to return a solution if at least any solution exists for any
random input.

Optimality: If a solution found for an algorithm is guaranteed to be

the best solution (lowest path cost) among all other solutions, then
such a solution for is said to be an optimal solution.

Time Complexity: Time complexity is a measure of time for an

algorithm to complete its task.

Space Complexity: It is the maximum storage space required at any

point during the search, as the complexity of the problem.
Types of search algorithms

Based on the search problems we can classify the search algorithms

into uninformed (Blind search) search and informed search
(Heuristic search) algorithms.

Uninformed/Blind Search:

The uninformed search does not contain any domain knowledge such
as closeness, the location of the goal. It operates in a brute-force way
as it only includes information about how to traverse the tree and
how to identify leaf and goal nodes. Uninformed search applies a way
in which search tree is searched without any information about the
search space like initial state operators and test for the goal, so it is
also called blind search. It examines each node of the tree until it
achieves the goal node.
It can be divided into five main types:

o Breadth-first search
o Uniform cost search
o Depth-first search
o Iterative deepening depth-first search
o Bidirectional Search

Informed Search

Informed search algorithms use domain knowledge. In an informed

search, problem information is available which can guide the search.
Informed search strategies can find a solution more efficiently than
an uninformed search strategy. Informed search is also called a
Heuristic search.

A heuristic is a way which might not always be guaranteed for best

solutions but guaranteed to find a good solution in reasonable time.

Informed search can solve much complex problem which could not
be solved in another way.

An example of informed search algorithms is a traveling salesman

problem.

1. Greedy Search
2. A* Search

Uninformed Search Algorithms

Uninformed search is a class of general-purpose search algorithms

which operates in brute force-way.

Uninformed search algorithms do not have additional information

about state or search space other than how to traverse the tree, so it
is also called blind search.

Following are the various types of uninformed search algorithms:

1. Breadth-first Search
2. Depth-first Search
3. Depth-limited Search
4. Iterative deepening depth-first search
 5. Uniform cost search
6. Bidirectional Search

1. Breadth-first Search:
o Breadth-first search is the most common search strategy for
traversing a tree or graph. This algorithm searches breadthwise
in a tree or graph, so it is called breadth-first search.

o BFS algorithm starts searching from the root node of the tree
and expands all successor node at the current level before
moving to nodes of next level.

o The breadth-first search algorithm is an example of a general-

graph search algorithm.

o Breadth-first search implemented using FIFO queue data

structure.

Advantages:

o BFS will provide a solution if any solution exists.

o If there are more than one solutions for a given problem, then
BFS will provide the minimal solution which requires the least
number of steps.

Disadvantages:

o It requires lots of memory since each level of the tree must be

saved into memory to expand the next level.

o BFS needs lots of time if the solution is far away from the root
node.

Example:

In the below tree structure, we have shown the traversing of the tree
using BFS algorithm from the root node S to goal node K. BFS search
algorithm traverse in layers, so it will follow the path which is shown
by the dotted arrow, and the traversed path will be:

1. S---> A--->B---->C--->D---->G--->H--->E---->F---->I---->K
Time Complexity:

Time Complexity of BFS algorithm can be obtained by the number of

nodes traversed in BFS until the shallowest Node. Where the d=
depth of shallowest solution and b is a node at every state.
T (b) = 1+b2+b3+.......+ bd= O (bd)

Space Complexity: Space complexity of BFS algorithm is given by the

Memory size of frontier which is O(bd).

Completeness: BFS is complete, which means if the shallowest goal

node is at some finite depth, then BFS will find a solution.

Optimality: BFS is optimal if path cost is a non-decreasing function

of the depth of the node.

2. Depth-first Search

o Depth-first search isa recursive algorithm for traversing a tree

or graph data structure.
o It is called the depth-first search because it starts from the root
node and follows each path to its greatest depth node before
moving to the next path.
o DFS uses a stack data structure for its implementation.
o The process of the DFS algorithm is similar to the BFS
algorithm.
Advantage:

o DFS requires very less memory as it only needs to store a stack

of the nodes on the path from root node to the current node.
o It takes less time to reach to the goal node than BFS algorithm
(if it traverses in the right path).

Disadvantage:

o There is the possibility that many states keep re-occurring, and

there is no guarantee of finding the solution.
o DFS algorithm goes for deep down searching and sometime it
may go to the infinite loop.

Example:

In the below search tree, we have shown the flow of depth-first

search, and it will follow the order as:

Root node--->Left node ----> right node.

It will start searching from root node S, and traverse A, then B, then
D and E, after traversing E, it will backtrack the tree as E has no
other successor and still goal node is not found. After backtracking it
will traverse node C and then G, and here it will terminate as it
found goal node.
Completeness: DFS search algorithm is complete within finite state
space as it will expand every node within a limited search tree.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of DFS will be equivalent to the

node traversed by the algorithm.

It is given by:
T(n)= 1+ n2+ n3 +.........+ nm=O(nm)
Where, m= maximum depth of any node and this can be much larger
than d (Shallowest solution depth)

Space Complexity: DFS algorithm needs to store only single path

from the root node, hence space complexity of DFS is equivalent to
the size of the fringe set, which is O(bm).

Optimal: DFS search algorithm is non-optimal, as it may generate a

large number of steps or high cost to reach to the goal node.

3. Depth-Limited Search Algorithm:

A depth-limited search algorithm is similar to depth-first search with

a predetermined limit. Depth-limited search can solve the drawback
of the infinite path in the Depth-first search. In this algorithm, the
node at the depth limit will treat as it has no successor nodes
further.

Depth-limited search can be terminated with two Conditions of

failure:
o Standard failure value: It indicates that problem does not have
any solution.

o Cutoff failure value: It defines no solution for the problem

within a given depth limit.

Advantages:
Depth-limited search is Memory efficient.

Disadvantages:

o Depth-limited search also has a disadvantage of

incompleteness.
o It may not be optimal if the problem has more than one
solution.
Example:

Completeness: DLS search algorithm is complete if the solution is

above the depth-limit.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of DLS algorithm is O(bℓ).

Space Complexity: Space complexity of DLS algorithm is O(b×ℓ).

Optimal: Depth-limited search can be viewed as a special case of

DFS, and it is also not optimal even if ℓ>d.

4. Uniform-cost Search Algorithm:

Uniform-cost search is a searching algorithm used for traversing a

weighted tree or graph. This algorithm comes into play when a
different cost is available for each edge. The primary goal of the
uniform-cost search is to find a path to the goal node which has the
lowest cumulative cost. Uniform-cost search expands nodes
according to their path costs form the root node. It can be used to
solve any graph/tree where the optimal cost is in demand. A
uniform-cost search algorithm is implemented by the priority queue.
It gives maximum priority to the lowest cumulative cost. Uniform
cost search is equivalent to BFS algorithm if the path cost of all
edges is the same.
Advantages:
o Uniform cost search is optimal because at every state the path
with the least cost is chosen.
Disadvantages:
o It does not care about the number of steps involve in searching
and only concerned about path cost. Due to which this
algorithm may be stuck in an infinite loop.

Example:

Completeness:
Uniform-cost search is complete, such as if there is a solution,
UCS will find it.

Time Complexity:
Let C* is Cost of the optimal solution, and ε is each step to get
closer to the goal node. Then the number of steps is = C*/ε+1. Here
we have taken +1, as we start from state 0 and end to C*/ε.

Hence, the worst-case time complexity of Uniform-cost search isO(b1

+ [C*/ε])/.
Space Complexity:

The same logic is for space complexity so, the worst-case space
complexity of Uniform-cost search is O(b1 + [C*/ε]).

Optimal:
Uniform-cost search is always optimal as it only selects a path
with the lowest path cost.

5. Iterative deepening depth-first Search:

The iterative deepening algorithm is a combination of DFS and BFS

algorithms. This search algorithm finds out the best depth limit and
does it by gradually increasing the limit until a goal is found.

This algorithm performs depth-first search up to a certain "depth

limit", and it keeps increasing the depth limit after each iteration
until the goal node is found.
This Search algorithm combines the benefits of Breadth-first search's
fast search and depth-first search's memory efficiency.

The iterative search algorithm is useful uninformed search when

search space is large, and depth of goal node is unknown.

Advantages:
o It combines the benefits of BFS and DFS search algorithm in
terms of fast search and memory efficiency.

Disadvantages:
o The main drawback of IDDFS is that it repeats all the work of
the previous phase.

Example:

Following tree structure is showing the iterative deepening depth-

first search. IDDFS algorithm performs various iterations until it
does not find the goal node. The iteration performed by the algorithm
is given as:
1'stIteration----->A
2'ndIteration---->A,B,C
3'rdIteration------>A,B,D,E,C,F,G
4'thIteration------>A,B,D,H,I,E,C,F,K,G

In the fourth iteration, the algorithm will find the goal node.

Completeness:
This algorithm is complete is if the branching factor is finite.

Time Complexity:
Let's suppose b is the branching factor and depth is d then the
worst-case time complexity is O(bd).

Space Complexity:
The space complexity of IDDFS will be O(bd).

Optimal:
IDDFS algorithm is optimal if path cost is a non- decreasing function
of the depth of the node.
6. Bidirectional Search Algorithm:

Bidirectional search algorithm runs two simultaneous searches, one

form initial state called as forward-search and other from goal node
called as backward-search, to find the goal node. Bidirectional search
replaces one single search graph with two small subgraphs in which
one starts the search from an initial vertex and other starts from goal
vertex. The search stops when these two graphs intersect each
other.Bidirectional search can use search techniques such as BFS,
DFS, DLS, etc.

Advantages:
o Bidirectional search is fast.
o Bidirectional search requires less memory

Disadvantages:
o Implementation of the bidirectional search tree is difficult.
o In bidirectional search, one should know the goal state in
advance.

Example:

In the below search tree, bidirectional search algorithm is applied.

This algorithm divides one graph/tree into two sub-graphs. It starts
traversing from node 1 in the forward direction and starts from goal
node 16 in the backward direction. The algorithm terminates at node
9 where two searches meet.
Completeness: Bidirectional Search is complete if we use BFS in both
searches.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of bidirectional search using BFS

is O(bd).

Space Complexity: Space complexity of bidirectional search is O(bd).

Optimal: Bidirectional search is Optimal.

Informed Search Algorithms

So far we have talked about the uninformed search algorithms which

looked through search space for all possible solutions of the problem
without having any additional knowledge about search space. But
informed search algorithm contains an array of knowledge such as
how far we are from the goal, path cost, how to reach to goal node,
etc. This knowledge helps agents to explore less to the search space
and find more efficiently the goal node.

The informed search algorithm is more useful for large search space.
Informed search algorithm uses the idea of heuristic, so it is also
called Heuristic search.

Heuristics function: Heuristic is a function which is used in Informed

Search, and it finds the most promising path. It takes the current
state of the agent as its input and produces the estimation of how
close agent is from the goal.

The heuristic method, however, might not always give the best
solution, but it guaranteed to find a good solution in reasonable time.
Heuristic function estimates how close a state is to the goal. It is
represented by h(n), and it calculates the cost of an optimal path
between the pair of states. The value of the heuristic function is
always positive.

Admissibility of the heuristic function is given as: h(n) <= h*(n)

Here h(n) is heuristic cost, and h*(n) is the estimated cost.

Hence heuristic cost should be less than or equal to the estimated

cost.
Pure Heuristic Search:

Pure heuristic search is the simplest form of heuristic search

algorithms. It expands nodes based on their heuristic value h(n). It
maintains two lists, OPEN and CLOSED list. In the CLOSED list, it
places those nodes which have already expanded and in the OPEN
list, it places nodes which have yet not been expanded.

On each iteration, each node n with the lowest heuristic value is

expanded and generates all its successors and n is placed to the
closed list. The algorithm continues unit a goal state is found.

In the informed search we will discuss two main algorithms which

are given below:

o Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)

o A* Search Algorithm

1.) Best-first Search Algorithm (Greedy Search):

Greedy best-first search algorithm always selects the path which

appears best at that moment. It is the combination of depth-first
search and breadth-first search algorithms. It uses the heuristic
function and search. Best-first search allows us to take the
advantages of both algorithms. With the help of best-first search, at
each step, we can choose the most promising node. In the best first
search algorithm, we expand the node which is closest to the goal
node and the closest cost is estimated by heuristic function, i.e.
f(n)= g(n).
Were, h(n)= estimated cost from node n to the goal.

The greedy best first algorithm is implemented by the priority queue.

Best first search algorithm:

o Step 1: Place the starting node into the OPEN list.

o Step 2: If the OPEN list is empty, Stop and return failure.

o Step 3: Remove the node n, from the OPEN list which has the
lowest value of h(n), and places it in the CLOSED list.
 o Step 4: Expand the node n, and generate the successors of node
n.

o Step 5: Check each successor of node n, and find whether any

node is a goal node or not. If any successor node is goal node,
then return success and terminate the search, else proceed to
Step 6.

o Step 6: For each successor node, algorithm checks for

evaluation function f(n), and then check if the node has been in
either OPEN or CLOSED list. If the node has not been in both
list, then add it to the OPEN list.

o Step 7: Return to Step 2.

Advantages:

o Best first search can switch between BFS and DFS by gaining
the advantages of both the algorithms.
o This algorithm is more efficient than BFS and DFS algorithms.

Disadvantages:

o It can behave as an unguided depth-first search in the worst

case scenario.
o It can get stuck in a loop as DFS.
o This algorithm is not optimal.

Example:

Consider the below search problem, and we will traverse it using

greedy best-first search. At each iteration, each node is expanded
using evaluation function f(n)=h(n) , which is given in the below
table.
In this search example, we are using two lists which
are OPEN and CLOSED Lists. Following are the iteration for
traversing the above example.

Expand the nodes of S and put in the CLOSED list

Initialization: Open [A, B], Closed [S]

Iteration 1: Open [A], Closed [S, B]

Iteration2: Open[E,F,A],Closed[S,B]
: Open [E, A], Closed [S, B, F]

Iteration3: Open[I,G,E,A],Closed[S,B,F]
: Open [I, E, A], Closed [S, B, F, G]

Hence the final solution path will be: S----> B----->F----> G

Time Complexity: The worst case time complexity of Greedy best first
search is O(bm).

Space Complexity: The worst case space complexity of Greedy best

first search is O(bm). Where, m is the maximum depth of the search
space.

Complete: Greedy best-first search is also incomplete, even if the

given state space is finite.

Optimal: Greedy best first search algorithm is not optimal.

2.) A* Search Algorithm:

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

uses heuristic function h(n), and cost to reach the node n from the
start state g(n). It has combined features of UCS and greedy best-first
search, by which it solve the problem efficiently. A* search algorithm
finds the shortest path through the search space using the heuristic
function. This search algorithm expands less search tree and
provides optimal result faster.

A* algorithm is similar to UCS except that it uses g(n)+h(n) instead of

g(n).
In A* search algorithm, we use search heuristic as well as the cost to
reach the node.

Hence we can combine both costs as following, and this sum is called
as a fitness number.
Algorithm of A* search:

Step1: Place the starting node in the OPEN list.

Step 2: Check if the OPEN list is empty or not, if the list is empty
then return failure and stops.

Step 3: Select the node from the OPEN list which has the smallest
value of evaluation function (g+h), if node n is goal node then return
success and stop, otherwise

Step 4: Expand node n and generate all of its successors, and put n
into the closed list. For each successor n', check whether n' is
already in the OPEN or CLOSED list, if not then compute evaluation
function for n' and place into Open list.

Step 5: Else if node n' is already in OPEN and CLOSED, then it

should be attached to the back pointer which reflects the lowest g(n')
value.

Step 6: Return to Step 2.

Advantages:
o A* search algorithm is the best algorithm than other search
algorithms.
o A* search algorithm is optimal and complete.
o This algorithm can solve very complex problems.

Disadvantages:
o It does not always produce the shortest path as it mostly based
on heuristics and approximation.
o A* search algorithm has some complexity issues.
 o The main drawback of A* is memory requirement as it keeps all
generated nodes in the memory, so it is not practical for various
large-scale problems.

Example:

In this example, we will traverse the given graph using the A*

algorithm. The heuristic value of all states is given in the below table
so we will calculate the f(n) of each state using the formula f(n)= g(n)
+ h(n), where g(n) is the cost to reach any node from start state.

Here we will use OPEN and CLOSED list.

Solution :
Initialization: {(S, 5)}

Iteration1: {(S--> A, 4), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration2: {(S--> A-->C, 4), (S--> A-->B, 7), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration3: {(S--> A-->C--->G, 6), (S--> A-->C--->D, 11), (S--> A-->B,

7), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration 4 will give the final result, as S--->A--->C--->G it provides

the optimal path with cost 6.

Points to remember:
o A* algorithm returns the path which occurred first, and it does
not search for all remaining paths.
o The efficiency of A* algorithm depends on the quality of
heuristic.
o A* algorithm expands all nodes which satisfy the condition
f(n)<="" li="">

Complete: A* algorithm is complete as long as:

o Branching factor is finite.
o Cost at every action is fixed.

Optimal: A* search algorithm is optimal if it follows below two

conditions:
o Admissible: the first condition requires for optimality is that
h(n) should be an admissible heuristic for A* tree search. An
admissible heuristic is optimistic in nature.
o Consistency: Second required condition is consistency for only
A* graph-search.

If the heuristic function is admissible, then A* tree search will always

find the least cost path.

Time Complexity: The time complexity of A* search algorithm

depends on heuristic function, and the number of nodes expanded is
exponential to the depth of solution d. So the time complexity is
O(b^d), where b is the branching factor.
Space Complexity: The space complexity of A* search algorithm
is O(b^d)

Hill Climbing Algorithm in Artificial Intelligence

o Hill climbing algorithm is a local search algorithm which

continuously moves in the direction of increasing
elevation/value to find the peak of the mountain or best
solution to the problem. It terminates when it reaches a peak
value where no neighbor has a higher value.

o Hill climbing algorithm is a technique which is used for

optimizing the mathematical problems. One of the widely
discussed examples of Hill climbing algorithm is Traveling-
salesman Problem in which we need to minimize the distance
traveled by the salesman.

o It is also called greedy local search as it only looks to its good

immediate neighbor state and not beyond that.

o A node of hill climbing algorithm has two components which are

state and value.

o Hill Climbing is mostly used when a good heuristic is available.

o In this algorithm, we don't need to maintain and handle the

search tree or graph as it only keeps a single current state.

Features of Hill Climbing:

Following are some main features of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

o Generate and Test variant: Hill Climbing is the variant of

Generate and Test method. The Generate and Test method
produce feedback which helps to decide which direction to move
in the search space.

o Greedy approach: Hill-climbing algorithm search moves in the

direction which optimizes the cost.
o No backtracking: It does not backtrack the search space, as it
does not remember the previous states.
State-space Diagram for Hill Climbing:

The state-space landscape is a graphical representation of the hill-

climbing algorithm which is showing a graph between various states
of algorithm and Objective function/Cost.

On Y-axis we have taken the function which can be an objective

function or cost function, and state-space on the x-axis. If the
function on Y-axis is cost then, the goal of search is to find the global
minimum and local minimum.

If the function of Y-axis is Objective function, then the goal of the

search is to find the global maximum and local maximum.

Different regions in the state space landscape:

Local Maximum: Local maximum is a state which is better than its

neighbor states, but there is also another state which is higher than
it.
C++ vs Java

Global Maximum: Global maximum is the best possible state of state

space landscape. It has the highest value of objective function.

Current state: It is a state in a landscape diagram where an agent is

currently present.
Flat local maximum: It is a flat space in the landscape where all the
neighbor states of current states have the same value.

Shoulder: It is a plateau region which has an uphill edge.

Types of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

o Simple hill Climbing:
o Steepest-Ascent hill-climbing:
o Stochastic hill Climbing:

1. Simple Hill Climbing:

Simple hill climbing is the simplest way to implement a hill climbing

algorithm. It only evaluates the neighbor node state at a time and
selects the first one which optimizes current cost and set it as a
current state. It only checks it's one successor state, and if it finds
better than the current state, then move else be in the same state.

This algorithm has the following features:

o Less time consuming
o Less optimal solution and the solution is not guaranteed

Algorithm for Simple Hill Climbing:

o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return
success and Stop.
o Step 2: Loop Until a solution is found or there is no new
operator left to apply.
o Step 3: Select and apply an operator to the current state.
o Step 4: Check new state:
a. If it is goal state, then return success and quit.
b. Else if it is better than the current state then assign new
state as a current state.
c. Else if not better than the current state, then return to
step2.
o Step 5: Exit.

2. Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:

The steepest-Ascent algorithm is a variation of simple hill climbing

algorithm. This algorithm examines all the neighboring nodes of the
current state and selects one neighbor node which is closest to the
goal state. This algorithm consumes more time as it searches for
multiple neighbors
Algorithm for Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:
o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return
success and stop, else make current state as initial state.
o Step 2: Loop until a solution is found or the current state does
not change.
a. Let SUCC be a state such that any successor of the
current state will be better than it.
b. For each operator that applies to the current state:
a. Apply the new operator and generate a new state.
b. Evaluate the new state.
c. If it is goal state, then return it and quit, else
compare it to the SUCC.
d. If it is better than SUCC, then set new state as
SUCC.
e. If the SUCC is better than the current state, then set
current state to SUCC.
o Step 5: Exit.

3. Stochastic hill climbing:

Stochastic hill climbing does not examine for all its neighbor before
moving. Rather, this search algorithm selects one neighbor node at
random and decides whether to choose it as a current state or
examine another state.

Problems in Hill Climbing Algorithm:

1. Local Maximum: A local maximum is a peak state in the landscape

which is better than each of its neighboring states, but there is
another state also present which is higher than the local maximum.

Solution: Backtracking technique can be a solution of the local

maximum in state space landscape. Create a list of the promising
path so that the algorithm can backtrack the search space and
explore other paths as well.
2. Plateau: A plateau is the flat area of the search space in which all
the neighbor states of the current state contains the same value,
because of this algorithm does not find any best direction to move. A
hill-climbing search might be lost in the plateau area.

Solution: The solution for the plateau is to take big steps or very little
steps while searching, to solve the problem. Randomly select a state
which is far away from the current state so it is possible that the
algorithm could find non-plateau region.

3. Ridges: A ridge is a special form of the local maximum. It has an

area which is higher than its surrounding areas, but itself has a
slope, and cannot be reached in a single move.

Solution: With the use of bidirectional search, or by moving in

different directions, we can improve this problem.
Simulated Annealing:

A hill-climbing algorithm which never makes a move towards a lower

value guaranteed to be incomplete because it can get stuck on a local
maximum. And if algorithm applies a random walk, by moving a
successor, then it may complete but not efficient.

Simulated Annealing is an algorithm which yields both efficiency and

completeness.

In mechanical term Annealing is a process of hardening a metal or

glass to a high temperature then cooling gradually, so this allows the
metal to reach a low-energy crystalline state. The same process is
used in simulated annealing in which the algorithm picks a random
move, instead of picking the best move. If the random move improves
the state, then it follows the same path.
Otherwise, the algorithm follows the path which has a probability of
less than 1 or it moves downhill and chooses another path.
 MCQ

1. Problem solving agents are also called as

a. Simple agent
b. Reflex agent
c. Rational agent
d. Goal based agent

2. Which represents a set of possible solutions, which a system

may have?

a) Search space
b) Start state
c) Search tree
d) Goal test

3. If a solution has the lowest cost among all solutions, then it is

called as

a) Optimal solution
b) Path cost
c) Transition model
d) None of the above

4. Which search does not contain any domain knowledge such as

closeness, the location of the goal?

a) Uninformed search
b) Informed search
c) Blind search
d) Both A and C

5. Which algorithm is a combination of DFS and BFS algorithms?

a) Iterative deepening depth-first Search

b) Simple Search
c) Complex search
d) Bidirectional search
6. If the environment is not fully observable or deterministic, then
which type of problems will occur?

a) Contingency problem
b) Conformant problem
c) Sensorless problems
d) All the above

7. The Estimated cost of cheapest solution f(n) =

a) h(n)
b) g(n)
c) h(n) * g(n)
d) h(n) + g(n)

8. Which is defined by the value of the objective function or

heuristic cost function?

a) Location
b) Elevation
c) Both
d) None of the Above

9. Which type of Search Algorithm requires less computation?

a) Informed search
b) Uninformed search
c) Both
d) None of the above

10. A node of hill climbing algorithm has

a) State components
b) Value components
c) Both
d) None of the above
CONCLUSION:

Upon completion of this, Students should be able to

 Understand the AI systems able to exhibit limited human-like

abilities, particularly in the form of problem solving by search

REFERENCES

1. David Poole, Alan Mackworth, Randy Goebel, ―Computational

Intelligence: a Logical Approach‖, Oxford University Press, 2004.
2. G. Luger, ―Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for
Complex Problem Solving‖, Fourth Edition, Pearson Education,
2002.

ASSIGNMENT

1. Explain about the Informed Search Algorithm.

2. Explain about the Uninformed Search Algorithm.
3. Explain about Local search Algorithm.
4. Explain about Local search in continuous spaces.
5. Explain about optimization problems.