Intro to Artificial Intelligence C o S c - 4142

Chapter 1 – Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Since the invention of computers or machines, their capability to perform various tasks
went on growing exponentially. Humans have developed the power of computer
systems in terms of their diverse working domains, their increasing speed, and reducing
size with respect to time. A branch of Computer Science named Artificial
Intelligence pursues creating the computers or machines as intelligent as human
beings.

1. What is Artificial Intelligence?

According to the father of Artificial Intelligence, John McCarthy, it is “The science and
engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer
programs”.

Artificial Intelligence is a way of making a computer, a computer-controlled robot, or a

software think intelligently, in the similar manner the intelligent humans think.

AI is accomplished by studying how human brain thinks, and how humans learn,
decide, and work while trying to solve a problem, and then using the outcomes of this
study as a basis of developing intelligent software and systems.

1.1 Goals of Artificial Intelligence

 To Create Expert Systems − The systems which exhibit intelligent behavior, learn,
demonstrate, explain, and advice its users.

 To Implement Human Intelligence in Machines − Creating systems that understand,

think, learn, and behave like humans.

1.2 What is Artificial Intelligence Technique?

In the real world, the knowledge has some unwelcomed properties −
 Its volume is huge, next to unimaginable.
 It is not well-organized or well-formatted.
 It keeps changing constantly.
AI Technique is a manner to organize and use the knowledge efficiently in such a way
that −
 It should be perceivable by the people who provide it.

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 It should be easily modifiable to correct errors.

 It should be useful in many situations though it is incomplete or inaccurate.
AI techniques elevate the speed of execution of the complex program it is equipped
with.
1.3 Programming with and without Artificial Intelligence
Programming without AI Programming with AI
A computer program without AI can
A computer program with AI can answer
answer the specific questions it is
the generic questions it is meant to solve.
meant to solve.
AI programs can absorb new modifications
by putting highly independent pieces of
Modification in the program leads to
information together. Hence you can modify
change in its structure.
even a minute piece of information of
program without affecting its structure.
Modification is not quick and easy. It
may lead to affecting the program Quick and Easy program modification.
adversely.

1.4 Applications of Artificial Intelligence

AI has been dominant in various fields such as −

 Gaming − AI plays crucial role in strategic games such as chess, poker, tic-tac-toe,
etc., where machine can think of large number of possible positions based on
heuristic knowledge.

 Natural Language Processing − It is possible to interact with the computer that

understands natural language spoken by humans.

 Expert Systems − There are some applications which integrate machine, software,
and special information to impart reasoning and advising. They provide explanation
and advice to the users.

 Vision Systems − These systems understand, interpret, and comprehend visual

input on the computer. For example,

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 A spying aeroplane takes photographs, which are used to figure out spatial
information or map of the areas.

 Doctors use clinical expert system to diagnose the patient.

 Police use computer software that can recognize the face of criminal with the
stored portrait made by forensic artist.

 Speech Recognition − Some intelligent systems are capable of hearing and

comprehending the language in terms of sentences and their meanings while a
human talks to it. It can handle different accents, slang words, noise in the
background, change in human‘s noise due to cold, etc.

 Handwriting Recognition − The handwriting recognition software reads the text

written on paper by a pen or on screen by a stylus. It can recognize the shapes of
the letters and convert it into editable text.

 Intelligent Robots − Robots are able to perform the tasks given by a human. They
have sensors to detect physical data from the real world such as light, heat,
temperature, movement, sound, bump, and pressure. They have efficient
processors, multiple sensors and huge memory, to exhibit intelligence. In addition,
they are capable of learning from their mistakes and they can adapt to the new
environment.

1.5 Objectives of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is a science and engineering to develop intelligent machines that
works like human to do tasks such as speech recognition, decision-making, reasoning,
learning, problem solving and translation between languages.

In simple words, it is developed to make human life easy in different aspects and
perform enormous works with more accuracy. It has become an intelligent part of
today‘s industry which is crucial as data is growing Big. It can perform tasks such as
identifying patterns in data more effectively than humans thus making business more
profitable. Knowledge Engineering and Machine learning is a core part of AI. Some of
the objectives of AI are:

 Know the difficulties that arise from attempting to define AI.

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 Know the three areas of research of AI, and give examples of problems from
each area.
 Understand in a general way how a neural network is designed and trained.
 Know the components of a formal system.
 Understand how depth first, breadth first, and bi-directional searches are
performed.
 Use evaluation functions to expedite the search process.

1.6 Approaches of Artificial Intelligence

Following are the approaches to the goal of AI:

 Computer systems that act like humans,

 Programs that simulate the human mind,
 Knowledge representation and mechanistic reasoning, and
 Intelligent or rational agent design.
The first two approaches focus on studying humans and how they solve problems, while
the latter two approaches focus on studying real-world problems and developing rational
solutions regardless of how a human would solve the same problems.

Programming a computer to act like a human is a difficult task and requires that the
computer system be able to understand and process commands in natural language,
store knowledge, retrieve and process that knowledge in order to derive conclusions
and make decisions, learn to adapt to new situations, perceive objects through
computer vision, and have robotic capabilities to move and manipulate objects.
Although this approach was inspired by the Turing Test, most programs have been
developed with the goal of enabling computers to interact with humans in a natural way
rather than passing the Turing Test.

The Turing Test is used as a theoretical standard to determine whether a human judge
can distinguish via a conversation with one machine and one human which a human is
and which is a machine. If a machine can trick the human judge into thinking it is human
then it passes the Turing Test

1.7 History of Artificial Intelligence

The concept of AI began around 1943 and became a field of study in 1956 at

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Dartmouth. AI is not limited to the Computer Sciences disciplines, but can be seen in
countless disciplines such as Mathematics, Philosophy, Economics, Neuroscience,
psychology and various other areas. The areas of interest in the Computer Science and
Engineering field are focused on how we can build more efficient computers. Great
advancements have been made in the area of hardware and software. Here is the
history of AI during 20th century:

Year Milestone / Innovation

Karel Čapek play named ―Rossum's Universal Robots‖ (RUR) opens in London,
1923
first use of the word "robot" in English.

1943 Foundations for neural networks laid.

1945 Isaac Asimov, a Columbia University alumni, coined the term Robotics.

Alan Turing introduced Turing Test for evaluation of intelligence and

1950 published Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Claude Shannon
published Detailed Analysis of Chess Playing as a search.

John McCarthy coined the term Artificial Intelligence. Demonstration of the first
1956 running AI program at Carnegie Mellon University.

1958 John McCarthy invents LISP programming language for AI.

Danny Bobrow's dissertation at MIT showed that computers can understand

1964 natural language well enough to solve algebra word problems correctly.

Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT built ELIZA, an interactive problem that carries on a

1965 dialogue in English.

Scientists at Stanford Research Institute Developed Shakey, a robot, equipped

1969 with locomotion, perception, and problem solving.

The Assembly Robotics group at Edinburgh University built Freddy, the Famous
1973 Scottish Robot, capable of using vision to locate and assemble models.

1979 The first computer-controlled autonomous vehicle, Stanford Cart, was built.

1985 Harold Cohen created and demonstrated the drawing program, Aaron.

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Major advances in all areas of AI −

 Significant demonstrations in machine learning

 Case-based reasoning
 Multi-agent planning
1990  Scheduling
 Data mining, Web Crawler
 natural language understanding and translation
 Vision, Virtual Reality
 Games

The Deep Blue Chess Program beats the then world chess champion, Garry
1997 Kasparov.

Interactive robot pets become commercially available. MIT displays Kismet, a

2000 robot with a face that expresses emotions. The robot Nomad explores remote
regions of Antarctica and locates meteorites.

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Chapter 2 – Introduction to Intelligent Agents

2.1 An agent is anything that can perceive its environment through sensors and acts
upon that environment through effectors.
 A human agent has sensory organs such as eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin
parallel to the sensors, and other organs such as hands, legs, mouth, for
effectors.
 A robotic agent replaces cameras and infrared range finders for the sensors,
and various motors and actuators for effectors.
 A software agent has encoded bit strings as its programs and actions.

An intelligent agent is an AI hardware and/or software system with some degree of

autonomy and the capacity to make decisions and take actions. Intelligent agents are
more advanced than conventional agents whose actions are completely programmed.
An agent program might, for example, use human-defined parameters to search
a knowledge base or the Internet and organize that information for presentation to the
user.
Intelligent agents, at their most complexes, include physical systems, such as AI-
equipped android (humanoid) robots. Although it has not yet been demonstrated, some
believe that a future system could not only look like a human but could also replicate
human cognitive powers in artificial general intelligence (AGI) or even overwhelmingly
surpass it in artificial super intelligence (ASI). At the lower end of the scale lie more
task-specific software programs, such as expert systems that work similarly to
conventional agent programs but nevertheless some degree of autonomy and physical
agents that take in sensor data and act on it.

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2.2 Agent Terminology

 Performance Measure of Agent − It is the criteria, which determines how
successful an agent is.
 Behavior of Agent − It is the action that agent performs after any given sequence
of percepts.
 Percept − It is agent‘s perceptual inputs at a given instance.
 Percept Sequence − It is the history of all that an agent has perceived till date.
 Agent Function − It is a map from the precept sequence to an action.

Agent Rationality
Rationality is nothing but status of being reasonable, sensible, and having good sense
of judgment.
Rationality is concerned with expected actions and results depending upon what the
agent has perceived. Performing actions with the aim of obtaining useful information is
an important part of rationality.

Ideal Rational Agent

An ideal rational agent is the one, which is capable of doing expected actions to

maximize its performance measure, on the basis of:

 Its percept sequence

 Its built-in knowledge base

Rationality of an agent depends on the following:

 The performance measures, which determine the degree of success.

 Agent‘s Percept Sequence till now.

 The agent‘s prior knowledge about the environment.

 The actions that the agent can carry out.

A rational agent always performs right action, where the right action means the action
that causes the agent to be most successful in the given percept sequence. The
problem the agent solves is characterized by Performance Measure, Environment,
Actuators, and Sensors (PEAS).

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Agent‘s structure can be viewed as:

 Agent = Architecture + Agent Program

 Architecture = the machinery that an agent executes on.

 Agent Program = an implementation of an agent function.

Types of Agents
Agents can be grouped into four classes based on their degree of perceived intelligence
and capability:

 Simple Reflex Agents

 Model-Based Reflex Agents
 Goal-Based Agents
 Utility-Based Agents
Simple Reflex Agents
Simple reflex agents ignore the rest of the percept history and act only on the basis of
the current percept. Percept history is the history of all that an agent has perceived till
date. The agent function is based on the condition-action rule. A condition-action rule
is a rule that maps a state i.e, condition to an action. If the condition is true, then the
action is taken, else not. This agent function only succeeds when the environment is
fully observable. For simple reflex agents operating in partially observable
environments, infinite loops are often unavoidable. It may be possible to escape from
infinite loops if the agent can randomize its actions. Problems with Simple reflex agents
are:

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 They choose actions only based on the current percept.

 They are rational only if a correct decision is made only on the basis of current
precept.
 Their environment is completely observable.
 Very limited intelligence.
 No knowledge of non-perceptual parts of state.
 Usually too big to generate and store.
 If there occurs any change in the environment, then the collections of rules need
to be updated.

Model Based Reflex Agent

It works by finding a rule whose condition matches the current situation. A model-based
agent can handle partially observable environments by use of model about the world.
The agent has to keep track of internal state which is adjusted by each percept and
that depends on the percept history. The current state is stored inside the agent which
maintains some kind of structure describing the part of the world which cannot be seen.
Updating the state requires the information about:
 how the world evolves in-dependently from the agent, and
 how the agent actions affects the world.

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Goal Based Agent

These kinds of agents take decision based on how far they are currently from their goal
(description of desirable situations). Their every action is intended to reduce its distance
from goal. This allows the agent a way to choose among multiple possibilities, selecting
the one which reaches a goal state. The knowledge that supports its decisions is
represented explicitly and can be modified, which makes these agents more flexible.
They usually require search and planning. The goal based agent‘s behavior can easily
be changed.

Utility Based Agents

The agents which are developed having their end uses as building blocks are called
utility based agents. When there are multiple possible alternatives, then to decide which
one is best, utility based agents are used. They choose actions based on a preference
(utility) for each state. Sometimes achieving the desired goal is not enough. We may
look for quicker, safer, cheaper trip to reach a destination. Agent happiness should be
taken into consideration. Utility describes how “happy” the agent is. Because of the
uncertainty in the world, a utility agent chooses the action that maximizes the expected
utility. A utility function maps a state onto a real number which describes the associated
degree of happiness.

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Goals are inadequate when:

 There are conflicting goals, out of which only few can be achieved.

 Goals have some uncertainty of being achieved and you need to weigh
likelihood of success against the importance of a goal.

2.3 Nature of Environment

Some programs operate in the entirely artificial environment confined to keyboard
input, database, computer file systems and character output on a screen.
In contrast, some software agents (software robots or softbots) exist in rich, unlimited
softbots domains. The simulator has a very detailed, complex environment. The
software agent needs to choose from a long array of actions in real time. A softbot
designed to scan the online preferences of the customer and show interesting items to
the customer works in the real as well as an artificial environment.
The most famous artificial environment is the Turing Test environment, in which
one real and other artificial agent are tested on equal ground. This is a very challenging
environment as it is highly difficult for a software agent to perform as well as a human.

Turing Test
The success of an intelligent behavior of a system can be measured with Turing Test.
Two persons and a machine to be evaluated participate in the test. Out of the two
persons, one plays the role of the tester. Each of them sits in different rooms. The
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tester is unaware of who is machine and who is a human. He interrogates the

questions by typing and sending them to both intelligences, to which he receives typed
responses.
This test aims at fooling the tester. If the tester fails to determine machine‘s response
from the human response, then the machine is said to be intelligent.

Properties of Environment
The environment has multifold properties:

 Discrete / Continuous − If there are a limited number of distinct, clearly defined,

states of the environment, the environment is discrete (For example, chess);
otherwise it is continuous (For example, driving).

 Observable / Partially Observable − If it is possible to determine the complete

state of the environment at each time point from the percepts it is observable;
otherwise it is only partially observable.

 Static / Dynamic − If the environment does not change while an agent is acting,
then it is static; otherwise it is dynamic.

 Single agent / Multiple agents − The environment may contain other agents
which may be of the same or different kind as that of the agent.

 Accessible / Inaccessible − If the agent‘s sensory apparatus can have access

to the complete state of the environment, then the environment is accessible to
that agent.

 Deterministic / Non-deterministic − If the next state of the environment is

completely determined by the current state and the actions of the agent, then the
environment is deterministic; otherwise it is non-deterministic.

 Episodic / Non-episodic − In an episodic environment, each episode consists

of the agent perceiving and then acting. The quality of its action depends just on
the episode itself. Subsequent episodes do not depend on the actions in the
previous episodes. Episodic environments are much simpler because the agent
does not need to think ahead.

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Chapter 3 – Problem Solving

3.1 Classical Approach of Problem Solving
The classical approach to solving a problem is pretty simple; given a problem at hand
use hit and trial method to check for various solutions to that problem. This hit and trial
approach usually works well for trivial problems and is referred to as the classical
approach to problem solving.
Consider the maze searching problem where the mouse travels though one path and
finds that the path leads to a dead end, it then back tracks somewhat and goes along
some other path and again finds that there is no way to proceed. It goes on performing
such search, trying different solutions to solve the problem until a sequence of turns in
the maze takes it to the cheese. Hence, of all the solutions the mouse tries, the one that
reached the cheese was the one that solved the problem.
Consider that a child is to switch on the light in a dark room. He sees the switchboard
having a number of buttons on it. He presses one, nothing happens, he presses the
second one, the fan gets on, he goes on trying different buttons till at last the room gets
lighted and his problem gets solved. Consider another situation when we have to open
a combinational lock of a briefcase. It is a lock which probably most of you would have
seen where we have different numbers and we adjust the individual dials/digits to obtain
a combination that opens the lock. However, if we don‘t know the correct combination of
digits that open the lock, we usually try 0-0-0, 7-7-7, 7-8-6 or any such combination for
opening the lock. We are solving this problem in the same manner as the child did in the
light switch example.
All this discussion has one thing in common. That different intelligent species use a
similar approach to solve the problem at hand. This approach is essentially the classical
way in which intelligent species solve problems. Technically we call this hit and trial
approaches the ―Generate and Test‖ approach.
Components of Problem Solving
There are four components of Problem solving such as Problem Statement, Goal State,
Solution Space and Operators.
 Problem Statement
This is the very essential component whereby we get to know what exactly the problem
at hand is. The two major things that we get to know about the problem is the

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Information about what is to be
done and constraints to which our solution should comply. For example we might just
say that given infinite amount of time, one will be
able to solve any problem he wishes to solve. But the constraint ―infinite amount of time‖
is not a practical one. Hence whenever addressing a problem we have to see that how
much time shall out solution take at max. Time is not the only constraint. Availability of
resources, and all the other parameters laid down in the problem statement actually tells
us about all the rules that have to be followed while solving a problem. For example,
taking the same example of the mouse, are problem statements that will tell us things
like, the mouse has to reach the cheese as soon as possible and in case it is unable to
find a path within an hour, it might die of hunger. The statement might as well tell us that
the mouse is located in the lower left corner of the maze and the cheese in the top left
corner, the mouse can turn left, right and might or might not be allowed to move
backward and things like that. Thus it is the problem statement that gives us a feel of
what exactly to do and helps us start thinking of how exactly things will work in the
solution.
 Problem Solution/Goal State
While solving a problem, this should be known that what will be our ultimate aim. That is
what should be the output of our procedure in order to solve the problem. For example
in the case of mouse, the ultimate aim is to reach the cheese. The state of word when
mouse will be beside the cheese and probably eating it defines the aim. This state of
word is also referred to as the Goal State or the state that represents the solution of the
problem.
 Solution Space
In order to reach the solution we need to check various strategies. We might or might
not follow a systematic strategy in all the cases. Whatever we follow, we have to go
through a certain amount of states of nature to reach the solution. For example when
the mouse was in the lower left corner of the maze, represents a state i.e. the start
state. When it was stuck in some corner of the maze represents a state. When it was
stuck somewhere else represents another state. When it was travelling on a path
represents some other state and finally when it reaches the cheese represents a state
called the goal state. The set of the start state, the goal state and all the intermediate
states constitutes something which is called a solution space.

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 Operators (Travelling in the Solution Space)

We have to travel inside this solution space in order to find a solution to our problem.
The travelling inside a solution space requires something called as ―operators‖. In case
of the mouse example, turn left, turn right, and go straight are the operators which help
us travelling inside the solution space. In short the action that takes us from one state to
the other is referred to as an operator. So while solving a problem we should clearly
know that what are the operators that we can use in order to reach the goal state from
the starting state. The sequence of these operators is actually the solution to our
problem.

3.2 Problem Solving Agents

There are four general steps for problem solving which are also referred as Goal based
agents. Here we will take an example of travelling from Teppi to Addis Ababa.
 Goal Formulation
 Declaring the Goal.
 Ignoring the some actions.
 Limits the objective that agent is trying to achieve.
 Goal can be defined as set of world states.
 Problem Formulation
 What actions and states to consider given the goal.
 It can change the world states size, enormously.
 It depends on how the agent is connected to its environment.
 Search
 Now, our agent knows the goal and actions.
 Which action to choose (with map or with-out map)?
 What action should be chosen in a state with unknown value?
 Process of looking for such a sequence is called Search.
 Search Algorithm takes problem as input and returns a solution in form of an
action sequence.
 Execute
 After finding a suitable action sequence, the actions can be carried out.
 To solve a problem: ―Formulate, Search, and Execute‖.

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3.3 Search Strategies Algorithm

Searching is the universal technique of problem solving in AI. There are some single-
player games such as tile games, Sudoku, crossword, etc. The search algorithms help
you to search for a particular position in such games.
Single Agent Path finding Problems
The games such as 3X3 eight-tile, 4X4 fifteen-tile, and 5X5 twenty four tile puzzles are
single-agent-path-finding challenges. They consist of a matrix of tiles with a blank tile.
The player is required to arrange the tiles by sliding a tile either vertically or horizontally
into a blank space with the aim of accomplishing some objective.

The other examples of single agent path finding problems are Travelling Salesman
Problem, Rubik‘s Cube, and Theorem Proving.

Brute Force Search Strategies

They are most simple, as they do not need any domain-specific knowledge. They work
fine with small number of possible states.
Requirements −
 State description
 A set of valid operators
 Initial state
 Goal state description
This search strategy includes Breadth First Search, Depth First Search, Bidirectional
Search, Uniform Cost Search, and Iterative Deepening Depth First Search.

 Breadth First Search

It starts from the root node, explores the neighboring nodes first and moves towards the
next level neighbors. It generates one tree at a time until the solution is found. It can be
implemented using FIFO (First In First Out) queue data structure. This method provides
shortest path to the solution.
If branching factor (average number of child nodes for a given node) = b and depth = d,
then number of nodes at level d = bd.
The total no of nodes created in worst case is b + b2 + b3 + … + bd.
Disadvantage − Since each level of nodes is saved for creating next one, it consumes
a lot of memory space. Space requirement to store nodes is exponential.

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Its complexity depends on the number of nodes. It can check duplicate nodes.

 Depth First Search

It is implemented in recursion with LIFO (Last In First Out) stack data structure. It
creates the same set of nodes as Breadth-First method, only in the different order. As
the nodes on the single path are stored in each iteration from root to leaf node, the
space requirement to store nodes is linear. With branching factor band depth as m, the
storage space is bm.
Disadvantage − This algorithm may not terminate and go on infinitely on one path. The
solution to this issue is to choose a cut-off depth. If the ideal cut-off is d, and if chosen
cut-off is lesser than d, then this algorithm may fail. If chosen cut-off is more than d,
then execution time increases.
Its complexity depends on the number of paths. It cannot check duplicate nodes.

 Bidirectional Search
It searches forward from initial state and backward from goal state till both meet to
identify a common state.
The path from initial state is concatenated with the inverse path from the goal state.
Each search is done only up to half of the total path.

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 Uniform Cost Search

Sorting is done in increasing cost of the path to a node. It always expands the least cost
node. It is identical to Breadth First search if each transition has the same cost.
It explores paths in the increasing order of cost.
Disadvantage − There can be multiple long paths with the cost ≤ C*. Uniform Cost
search must explore them all.

 Iterative Deepening Depth First Search

It performs depth-first search to level 1, starts over, executes a complete depth-first
search to level 2, and continues in such way till the solution is found. It never creates a
node until all lower nodes are generated. It only saves a stack of nodes. The algorithm
ends when it finds a solution at depth d. The number of nodes created at depth d is
bd and at depth d-1 is bd-1.

Comparision of Various Algorithms Complexities

Interactive
Criterion Breadth First Depth First Bidirectional Uniform Cost
Deepening

Time bd bm bd/2 bd bd

Space bd bm bd/2 bd bd

Optimality Yes No Yes Yes Yes

Completeness Yes No Yes Yes Yes

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3.4 Informed (Heuristic) Search Strategies

To solve large problems with large number of possible states, problem-specific

knowledge needs to be added to increase the efficiency of search algorithms.

 Heuristic Evaluation Functions

They calculate the cost of optimal path between two states. A heuristic function for
sliding-tiles games is computed by counting number of moves that each tile makes from
its goal state and adding these numbers of moves for all tiles.

 Pure Heuristic Search

It expands nodes in the order of their heuristic values. It creates two lists, a closed list
for the already expanded nodes and an open list for the created but unexpanded
nodes.

In each iteration, a node with a minimum heuristic value is expanded; all its child nodes
are created and placed in the closed list. Then, the heuristic function is applied to the
child nodes and they are placed in the open list according to their heuristic value. The
shorter paths are saved and the longer ones are disposed.

 A * Search

It is best-known form of Best First search. It avoids expanding paths that are already
expensive, but expands most promising paths first.

f(n) = g(n) + h(n), where

 g(n) the cost (so far) to reach the node

 h(n) estimated cost to get from the node to the goal

 f(n) estimated total cost of path through n to goal. It is implemented using priority
queue by increasing f (n).

 Greedy Best First Search

It expands the node that is estimated to be closest to goal. It expands nodes based on
f(n) = h(n). It is implemented using priority queue.

Disadvantage − It can get stuck in loops. It is not optimal.

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3.5 Local Search Algorithms

They start from a prospective solution and then move to a neighbouring solution. They
can return a valid solution even if it is interrupted at any time before they end.
Hill-Climbing Search
It is an iterative algorithm that starts with an arbitrary solution to a problem and attempts
to find a better solution by changing a single element of the solution incrementally. If the
change produces a better solution, an incremental change is taken as a new solution.
This process is repeated until there are no further improvements.
function Hill-Climbing (problem), returns a state that is a local maximum.
inputs: problem, a problem
local variables: current, a node
neighbor, a node
current <-Make_Node(Initial-State[problem])
loop
do neighbor <- a highest_valued successor of current
if Value[neighbor] ≤ Value[current] then
return State[current]
current <- neighbor

end
Disadvantage − This algorithm is neither complete, nor optimal.

 Local Beam Search

In this algorithm, it holds k number of states at any given time. At the start, these states
are generated randomly. The successors of these k states are computed with the help
of objective function. If any of these successors is the maximum value of the objective
function, then the algorithm stops.
Otherwise the (initial k states and k number of successors of the states = 2k) states are
placed in a pool. The pool is then sorted numerically. The highest k states are selected
as new initial states. This process continues until a maximum value is reached.
function BeamSearch ( problem, k), returns a solution state.
start with k randomly generated states
loop
generate all successors of all k states
if any of the states = solution, then return the state
else select the k best successors
end

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 Travelling Salesman Problem

The traveling salesman problem (TSP) is an algorithmic problem tasked with finding the
shortest route between a set of points and locations that must be visited. In the problem
statement, the points are the cities a salesperson might visit. The salesman‗s goal is to
keep both the travel costs and the distance traveled as low as possible.

In this algorithm, the objective is to find a low-cost tour that starts from a city, visits all
cities en-route exactly once and ends at the same starting city.

Start
Find out all (n -1)! Possible solutions, where n is the total number of cities.
Determine the minimum cost by finding out the cost of each of these (n -1)! solutions.
Finally, keep the one with the minimum cost.
end

 Simulated Annealing
Annealing is the process of heating and cooling a metal to change its internal structure
for modifying its physical properties. When the metal cools, its new structure is seized,
and the metal retains its newly obtained properties. In simulated annealing process, the
temperature is kept variable.
We initially set the temperature high and then allow it to ‗cool' slowly as the algorithm
proceeds. When the temperature is high, the algorithm is allowed to accept worse
solutions with high frequency.

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Chapter 4 – Knowledge and Reasoning

4.1 Introduction to Statement / Propositions
In order to make arguments rigorous, we need to develop a language in which we can
express sentences in such a way that brings out their logical structure. The language
we begin with is the language of propositional logic. It is based on propositions, or
declarative sentences which one can, in principle, argue as being true or false.
Examples of declarative sentences are:
1) The sum of the numbers 3 and 5 equals 8.
2) Bontu reacted violently to Abebe‘s accusations.
3) Every even natural number >2 is the sum of two prime numbers.
4) All Ethiopians like Thibs with Injira.
5) Albert Camus ´etait un ´ecrivain fran，cais.
6) Die W¨urde des Menschen ist unantastbar.
These sentences are all declarative, because they are in principle capable of being
declared ‗true‘, or ‗false‘.

Sentence (1) can be tested by appealing to basic facts about arithmetic (and by tacitly
assuming an Arabic, decimal representation of natural numbers).

Sentence (2) is a bit more problematic. In order to give it a truth value, we need to know
who Bontu and Abebe are and perhaps to have a reliable account from someone who
witnessed the situation described. In principle, e.g., if we had been at the scene, we feel
that we would have been able to detect Bontu‘s violent reaction, provided that it indeed
occurred in that way.

Sentence (3), known as Goldbach‘s conjecture, seems straightforward on the face of it.
Clearly, a fact about all even numbers >2 is either true or false. But to this day nobody
knows whether sentence (3) expresses a truth or not. It is even not clear whether this
could be shown by some finite means, even if it were true. However, in this text we will
be content with sentences as soon as they can, in principle, attain some truth value
regardless of whether this truth value reflects the actual state of affairs suggested by the
sentence in question.

Sentence (4) seems a bit silly, although we could say that if Ethiopians eat Thibs then

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all of them will either like Injira on it or not. Because someone may like bread, ambasha
or rus with Thibs.

Sentences (5) and (6) are fine if you happen to read French and German a bit. Thus,
declarative statements can be made in any natural, or artificial, language. The kind of
sentences we won‘t consider here are non-declarative ones, like
 Could you please pass me the salt?

 Ready, steady, go!

 May fortune come your way?

4.2 Logical Connectives

Definitions: A logical connective (also called a logical operator) is a symbol or word
used to connect two or more sentences (of either a formal or a natural language) in a
grammatically valid way, such that the sense of the compound sentence produced
depends only on the original sentences. In terms of logical form, statements are built
from simpler statements using logical connectives. The basic connectives of sentential
logic are:
(a) Negation ("not"), denoted .
(b) Conjunction ("and"), denoted .
(c) Disjunction ("or"), denoted .
(d) Conditional ("if-then" or "implication"), denoted .
(e) Biconditional ("if and only if" or "double implication"), denoted .
Note: You may see different symbols used by other people. For example, some people
use for negation. And is sometimes used for the conditional, in which case is
used for the biconditional.

Example 1: Represent the following statements using logical connectives.

Given statements P and Q, we can combine them with various connectives.

(a) P or not Q.

(b) If P and R, then Q.

(c) P if and only if (Q and R).

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(d) Not P and not Q.

(e) It is not the case that if P, then Q.

(f) If P and Q, then R or S.

Other words or phrases may occur in statements. Here's a list of some of them and how
they are translated.

Consider the word "but", for example. If I say "Tesfaye is here, but Bontu is there", I
mean that Tesfaye is here and Bontu is there. My intention is that both of the
statements should be true. That is the same as what I mean when I say "Tesfaye is
here and Bontu is there".
In practice, mathematicians tend to a small set of phrases over and over. It doesn't
make for exciting reading, but it allows the reader to concentrate on the meaning of
what is written. For example, a mathematician will usually say "if Q, then P", rather than
the logically equivalent "P whenever Q". The second statement is less familiar, and
therefore more apt to be misunderstood.
This is a good time to discuss the way the word "or" is used in mathematics. When you
say "I'll have dinner at Armahic Hotel or at Kanain Hotel", you probably mean "or" in its
exclusive sense: You'll have dinner either at Armahic Hotel or you'll have dinner at

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Kanain Hotel, but not both. The "but not both" is what makes this an exclusive or.

Mathematicians use "or" in the inclusive sense. When "or" is used in this way, "I'll have
dinner at Armahic Hotel or at Kanain Hotel " means you'll have dinner at Armahic Hotel
or you'll have dinner at Kanain Hotel, or possibly both. Obviously, I'm not guaranteeing
that both will occur; I'm just not ruling it out.

Example 2: Translate the following statements into logical notation, using the
following symbols:

S = "The Shiiroo is hot."

L = "The laslasa is cold."

P = "The pizza will be delivered."

(a) "The Shiiroo is hot and the pizza will not be delivered."

(b) "If the laslasa is cold, then the pizza will be delivered."

(c) "Either the laslasa is cold or the pizza won't be delivered."

(d) "If the pizza won't be delivered, then both the Shiiroo is hot and the laslasa is cold."

(e) "The laslasa isn't cold if and only if the Shiiroo isn't hot."

(f) "The pizza will be delivered only if the laslasa is cold."

(g) "The Shiiroo is hot and the laslasa isn't cold, but the pizza will be delivered."

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4.3 Introduction to Propositional Logic

Definition: A proposition or statement is a sentence which is either true or false. If a
proposition is true, then we say its truth value is true, and if a proposition is false, we
say its truth value is false.

Are these propositions?

1. The sun is shining.

2. The sum of two prime numbers is even.
3. 3+4=7
4. It rained in Teppi on February 01, 2019
5. Is it raining?
6. Come to class!
7. The moon is made of green cheese.

Definition: A propositional variable represents an arbitrary proposition. We represent

propositional variables with uppercase letters.
What is an Argument?
Definition: An argument consists of a sequence of statements called premises and a
statement called a conclusion. An argument is valid if the conclusion is true whenever
the premises are all true.
Example-1: My program won‘t compile or it produces a division by 0 error. My program
does not produce a division by 0 error. Therefore my program will not compile. Now:
Rewrite this argument in its general form by defining appropriate propositional variables.
This is one example of an argument form that is called disjunctive syllogism.
Example-2: Another disjunctive syllogism example Ladybugs are purple or green.
Ladybugs are not green. Therefore ladybugs are purple.
Let P be: Ladybugs are purple. Let Q be: Ladybugs are green. Rewritten argument: P or
Q not Q Therefore P This argument is valid, but it isn‘t very meaningful since P and Q
are not true.

Logic format - “if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it
aren’t. That’s logic!”

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Prepositional Logic
To develop a language in which we can express sentences in such a way that brings
out their logical structure. The language we begin with is the language of propositional
logic. It is based on propositions,
Let us assign certain distinct symbols p, q, r, . . ., or sometimes p1, p2, p3, . . . to each
of these atomic sentences and we can then code up more complex sentences in a
compositional way. For example, given the atomic sentences
p: ‗I won the lottery last week.‘
q: ‗I purchased a lottery ticket.‘
r: ‗I won last week‘s sweepstakes.‘
We can form more complex sentences according to the rules below:
￢: The negation of p is denoted by ￢p and expresses ‗I did not win the lottery last
week,‘ or equivalently ‗It is not true that I won the lottery last week.‘

∨ : Given p and r we may wish to state that at least one of them is true: ‗I won the lottery
last week, or I won last week‘s sweepstakes;‘ we denote this declarative sentence by p
∨ r and call it the disjunction of p and r.

∧ : Dually, the formula p ∧ r denotes the rather fortunate conjunction of p and r: ‗Last
week I won the lottery and the sweepstakes.‘

→: Last, but definitely not least, the sentence ‗If I won the lottery last week, then I
purchased a lottery ticket.‘ expresses an implication between p and q, suggesting that q
is a logical consequence of p. We write p → q for that. We call p the assumption of p →
q and q its conclusion. Of course, we are entitled to use these rules of constructing
propositions repeatedly.

For example, we are now in a position to form the proposition p ∧ q → ￢r ∨ q which

means that ‗if p and q then not r or q‘. You might have noticed a potential ambiguity in
this reading. One could have argued that this sentence has the structure ‗p is the case
and if q then . . . ‘ A computer would require the insertion of brackets, as in (p ∧ q) → ((
￢r) ∨ q).

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The Syntax of Propositional Logic

The expressions of this language are called well-formed formulas or wffs.
1) Every propositional symbol is a wff. (We use p, p1, p2, p3,. . . , q, q1, q2, q3 . . . as

propositional symbols.)

2) For any wff W, the following is also a wff: ¬W

3) For any two wffs W1 and W2, the following are also wffs: W1 ∧ W2, W1 ∨ W2, W1 ⇒

W2, W1 ⇔ W2 .

4) Any wff may be enclosed in parentheses and will still be a wff.

5) No other string of symbols is a wff.

Rules (2) and (3) form compound wffs from other wffs.
The symbols ¬,∧,∨,⇒ and ⇔ are the connectives. Here are examples of wffs:
Propositional Logic Statements

4.4 Tautologies & contradiction

Tautology: A tautology is a proposition that is always true. Example: For a given
atomic sentence, p and q , p ∨ ¬p

Contradiction: A contradiction is a proposition that is always false. Example: For a

given atomic sentence, p and q, p ∧ ¬p

Contingency: Contingency is a proposition that is neither a tautology nor a

contradiction. Example: For a given atomic sentence p and q, p ∨ q → ¬r

Validity : Validity is closely related to logical truth. A sentence is a logical truth if it is a

tautology. A tautology is a statement which is true solely in virtue of its logical structure.
Any logically valid argument can be recast as a logically true sentence.

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Example

Consider the following argument:

 If it is raining, the road will be wet

 It is raining
 Therefore, the road is wet.

In symbolic logic this can be expressed in the following way:

 If X, then Y
 X
 Therefore, Y

Where 'X' is "it is raining" and 'Y' is "the road is wet", with the first two statements being
the premises and the final statement the conclusion

Logical Validity considers only the structure of the argument, not if the argument is
actually true. In the above argument, it is valid, because the structure of the argument is
true. Another argument which has the same structure is the following:

 If there is creation there must be a creator

 There is creation
 Therefore, there is a creator.

The above argument is logically valid, again, meaning that the argument is true based
only on its structure.

ARGUMENTS AND PROOFS

Definition: An argument is a sequence of statements called premises, plus a statement
called the conclusion. A valid argument is an argument such that the conclusion is true
whenever the premises are all true.
Note: An argument has the following form:
(P1 ^ P2 ^ ... ^ Pn) → C.
Example: Argument:
If it is Saturday, then it will rain.
It is Saturday.

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Therefore it will rain.

Is this a valid argument? Let‘s come up with the general form.
P: It is Saturday.
Q: It will rain.
Premises: P → Q, P
Conclusion: Q
Typically we write the argument like this:
P→Q
P
Q

Note: the symbol stands for ―therefore‖.

Note: We can see via a truth table that, for propositions P and Q, ((P → Q) ^ P) → Q is
a tautology: from Truth table:
Modus Ponens
This general form of argument, the rule of inference called modus ponens:
P→Q
P
Q is valid since whenever the premises are true, the conclusion is also true.
Example: If it snows, then the schools will be closed. It snows.
Therefore the schools are closed.
P: It snows.
Q: The schools will be closed.
If P→ Q and P are true, then Q is true, by modus ponens.

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Chapter 5 – Uncertain Knowledge and Reasoning

5.1 Introduction to Predicate Logic
The propositional logic is not powerful enough to represent all types of assertions that
are used in computer science and mathematics, or to express certain types of
relationship between propositions such as equivalence. For example, the statement "x
is greater than 1", where x is a variable, is not a proposition because you cannot tell
whether it is true or false unless you know the value of x. Thus the propositional logic
cannot deal with such sentences.
Also the pattern involved in the following logical equivalences cannot be captured by the
propositional logic:

"Not all birds fly" is equivalent to "Some birds don't fly".

"Not all integers are even" is equivalent to "Some integers are not even".
"Not all cars are expensive" is equivalent to "Some cars are not expensive",
Each of those propositions is treated independently of the others in propositional logic.
For example, if P represents "Not all birds fly" and Q represents "Some integers are not
even", then there is no mechanism in propositional logic to find out whether or not P is
equivalent to Q. Hence to be used in inferencing, each of these equivalences must be
listed individually rather than dealing with a general formula.

Hence we need more powerful logic to deal with these and other problems. The
predicate logic is one of such logic and it addresses these issues among others. To
cope with deficiencies of propositional logic we introduce two new features: predicates
and quantifiers.

A predicate is a verb phrase template that describes a property of objects, or a

relationship among objects represented by the variables. Sometimes it is also called as
Predicate Calculus and First Order Logic. It shifts the focus from logical relations that
holds between sentences to those that holds within sentences. A Predications consist of
a Predicate and a set of arguments such as given below.

Predicate ( arg1, ….argn)

For example, the sentences "The car Tom is driving is blue", "The sky is blue", and "The

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cover of this book is blue" come from the template "is blue" by placing an appropriate
noun/noun phrase in front of it. The phrase "is blue" is a predicate and it describes the
property of being blue. Predicates are often given a name. For example any of
"is_blue", "Blue" or "B" can be used to represent the predicate "is blue" among others. If
we adopt B as the name for the predicate "is_blue", sentences that assert an object is
blue can be represented as "B(x)", where x represents an arbitrary object.

B (X) reads as ―x is blue‖.

Similarly the sentences "John gives the book to Mary", "Jim gives a loaf of bread to
Tom", and "Jane gives a lecture to Mary" are obtained by substituting an appropriate
object for variables x, y, and z in the sentence "x gives y to z". The template "... gives ...
to ..." is a predicate and it describes a relationship among three objects. This predicate
can be represented by Give( x, y, z ) or G( x, y, z ), for example.

Note: The sentence "John gives the book to Mary" can also be represented by another
predicate such as "gives a book to". Thus if we use B( x, y ) to denote this predicate,
"John gives the book to Mary" becomes B( John, Mary ). In that case, the other
sentences, "Jim gives a loaf of bread to Tom", and "Jane gives a lecture to Mary", must
be expressed with other predicates.

Examples

Daniel is a student at MTU.

What is the subject? What is the predicate?

Example 1: We can form two different predicates here.

Let P(x) be ―x is a student at MTU‖.
Let Q(x, y) be ―x is a student at y‖.

Definition: A predicate is a property that a variable or a finite collection of variables can

have. A predicate becomes a proposition when specific values are assigned to the
variables. P(x1, x2, ..., xn) is called a predicate of n variables or n arguments.
Example 2: She lives in the city.

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P(x,y): x lives in y.
P(Ayantu, Teppi) is a proposition: Ayantu lives in Teppi.

Domains and Truth Sets

Definition: The domain or universe or universe of discourse for a predicate variable is
the set of values that may be assigned to the variable.
Definition: If P(x) is a predicate and x has domain U, the truth set of P(x) is the set of all
elements t of U such that P(t) is true,
Example: U = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10}
P(x): ―x is even‖.
The truth set is: {2, 4, 6, 8, 10}

5.2 Quantification
It is a Logical expression or an expression, as ―all‖ or ―some,‖ that indicates the quantity
of a proposition, especially a modifier, which indicates the quantity of something.

The Universal Quantifier: ∀

Turn predicates into propositions by assigning values to all variables:
Predicate P(x): ―x is even‖
Proposition P(6): ―6 is even‖
The other way to turn a predicate into a proposition: add a quantifier like ―all‖ or ―some‖
that indicates the number of values for which the predicate is true.

Definition: The symbol ∀ is called the universal quantifier. The universal quantification of
P(x) is the statement ―P(x) for all values x in the universe‖, which is written in logical
notation as:
∀xP(x)
Ways to read ∀xP(x):
For every x, P(x)
For every x, P(x) is true
For all x, P(x)

A predicate with variables is not a proposition. For example, the statement x > 1 with

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variable x over the universe of real numbers is neither true nor false since we don't
know what x is. It can be true or false depending on the value of x.
For x > 1 to be a proposition either we substitute a specific number for x or change it to
something like "There is a number x for which x > 1 holds", or "For every number x, x >
1 holds".

The Universal Quantifier

The expression: x P(x), denotes the universal quantification of the atomic formula
P(x). Translated into the English language, the expression is understood as: "For all x,
P(x) holds", "for each x, P(x) holds" or "for every x, P(x) holds". is called
the universal quantifier, and x means all the objects x in the universe. If this is
followed by P(x) then the meaning is that P(x) is true for every object x in the universe.
For example, "All cars have wheels" could be transformed into the propositional form,
x P(x), where:

 P(x) is the predicate denoting: x has wheels, and

 the universe of discourse is only populated by cars.

The Existential Quantifier

The expression: xP(x), denotes the existential quantification of P(x). Translated into
the English language, the expression could also be understood as: "There exists
an x such that P(x)" or "There is at least one x such that P(x)" is called the existential
quantifier, and x means at least one object x in the universe. If this is followed
by P(x) then the meaning is that P(x) is true for at least one object x of the universe. For
example, "Someone loves you" could be transformed into the propositional form, x
P(x), where:

 P(x) is the predicate meaning: x loves you,

 The universe of discourse contains (but is not limited to) all living creatures.

How to read quantified formulas

When reading quantified formulas in English, read them from left to right. x can be
read as "for every object x in the universe the following holds" and x can be read as
"there exists an object x in the universe which satisfies the following" or "for some
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object x in the universe the following holds". Those do not necessarily give us good
English expressions. But they are where we can start. Get the correct reading first then
polish your English without changing the truth values.

For example, let the universe be the set of airplanes and let F(x, y) denote "x flies faster
than y". Then x y F(x, y) can be translated initially as "For every airplane x the
following holds: x is faster than every (any) airplane y". In simpler English it means
"Every airplane is faster than every airplane (including itself!)".
x y F(x, y) can be read initially as "For every airplane x the following holds: for some
airplane y, x is faster than y".

In simpler English it means "Every airplane is faster than some airplane".

x y F(x, y) represents "There exist an airplane x which satisfies the following: (or
such that) for every airplane y, x is faster than y".

In simpler English it says "There is an airplane which is faster than every airplane" or
"Some airplane is faster than every airplane".
x y F(x, y) reads "For some airplane x there exists an airplane y such that x is
faster than y", which means "Some airplane is faster than some airplane".

Order of Application of Quantifiers

When more than one variables are quantified in a wff such as y x P( x, y ), they are
applied from the inside, that is, the one closest to the atomic formula is applied first.
Thus y x P( x, y ) reads y[ x P( x, y ) ] , and we say "there exists an y such
that for every x, P( x, y ) holds" or "for some y, P( x, y ) holds for every x".

5.3 Inference in Predicate Logic

Predicate logic is more powerful than propositional logic. It allows one to reason about
properties and relationships of individual objects. In predicate logic, one can use some
inference rules.

The following four rules describe when and how the universal and existential quantifiers
can be added to or deleted from an assertion.

Universal Instantiation:
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x P(X)

P(c)

Universal Generalization:

P(c)
---------- Where P(c) holds for every element c of the universe of discourse.
x P(x)

Existential Instantiation:

x P(x)
----------- Where c is some element of the universe of discourse, It is not arbitrary but
P(c) must be one for which P(c) is true.

Where c is some element of the universe of discourse. It is not arbitrary but must be one
for which P(c) is true.

Existential Generalization:

P(c)
---------- Where c is an element of the universe.
x P(x)

Negation of Quantified Statement

Another important inference rule is the following:
x P(x) x P(x)
This, for example, shows that if P(x) represents x is happy and the universe is the set of
people, then "There does not exist a person who is happy" is equivalent to "Everyone is
not happy". Thus the left side can be substituted for the right side whenever necessary
in reasoning and vice versa.

Example:

As an example of inference using these rules, let us consider the following reasoning:
A cheque is void if it has not been cashed for 30 days. This cheque has not been
cashed for 30 days. Therefore this cheque is void. You cannot cash a cheque
which is void. Therefore you cannot cash this cheque. We now have a cheque
which cannot be cashed.

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This can be put into symbolic form using the following predicates assuming the universe
is the set of all objects:

C(x): x is a cheque.

T(x): x has been cashed within 30 days.

V(x): x is void.

S(x): x can be cashed.

This_ cheque represents a specific object in the universe which corresponds to "this
cheque‖.

x [ [ C(x) T(x) ] V(x) ]

T( This_cheque )
-----------------------------------
V( This_cheque )

x [ [ C(x) V(x) ] S(x) ]

-----------------------------------------------
S( This_cheque)

x [ C(x) S(x) ]

Here the reasoning proceeds as follows:

From x[ [ C(x) T(x) ] V(x) ] by Universal Instantiation

[ [ C( This_cheque) T( This_cheque) ] V( This_cheque) ]

Since This_cheque is a cheque and T( This_cheque) ,

[ C( This_cheque) T( This_cheque) ] holds.

Hence
[ [ C( This_cheque) T( This_cheque) ] V( This_cheque) ]

[ C( This_cheque) T( This_cheque) ]

---------------------------------------------------------
V( This_cheque)

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5.4 Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

Artificial Intelligence Cycle
Almost all AI systems have the following components in general:
 Perception
 Learning
 Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
 Planning
 Execution

An AI system has a perception component that allows the system to get information
from its environment. As with human perception, this may be visual, audio or other
forms of sensory information. The system must then form a meaningful and useful
representation of this information internally. This knowledge representation maybe static
or it may be coupled with a learning component that is adaptive and draws trends from
the perceived data.
Knowledge representation (KR) and reasoning are closely coupled components which
are basically tied to each other. A representation scheme is not meaningful on its own; it
must be useful and helpful in achieve certain tasks. The same information may be
represented in many different ways, depending on how you want to use that
information. For example, in mathematics, if we want to solve problems about ratios, we
would most likely use algebra, but we could also use simple hand drawn symbols. To
say half of something, you could use 0.5 x or you could draw a picture of the object with
half of it coloured differently. Both would convey the same information but the former is
more compact and useful in complex scenarios where you want to perform reasoning
on the information. It is important at this point to understand how knowledge
representation and reasoning are interdependent components, and as AI system
designer, you have to consider this relationship when coming up with any solution.

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Knowledge and Its Type
Knowledge is referred as the ―Understanding of a subject area‖. A well-focused subject
area is referred to as a knowledge domain, for example, medical domain, engineering
domain, business domain, etc. If we analyze the various types of knowledge we use in
everyday life, we can broadly define knowledge to be one of the following categories:
 Procedural knowledge: Describes how to do things, provides a set of directions
of how to perform certain tasks, e.g., how to drive a car.
 Declarative knowledge: It describes objects, rather than processes. What is
known about a situation, e.g. it is sunny today, and cherries are red.
 Meta knowledge: Knowledge about knowledge, e.g., the knowledge that blood
pressure is more important for diagnosing a medical condition than eye color.
 Heuristic knowledge: Rule-of-thumb, e.g. if I start seeing shops, I am close to
the market.
 Heuristic knowledge is sometimes called shallow knowledge.
 Heuristic knowledge is empirical as opposed to deterministic
 Structural knowledge: Describes structures and their relationships. e.g. how the
various parts of the car fit together to make a car, or knowledge structures in
terms of concepts, sub concepts, and objects.

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5.5 Reasoning
As we have learned knowledge representation, we will look at mechanisms to reason on
the knowledge once we have represented it using some logical scheme. Reasoning is
the process of deriving logical conclusions from given facts. Reasoning is referred as
―the process of working with knowledge, facts and problem solving strategies to draw
conclusions‖.
Types of Reasoning
 Deductive Reasoning
Deductive reasoning, as the name implies, is based on deducing new information
from logically related known information. A deductive argument offers assertions
that lead automatically to a conclusion.
Example: If there is dry wood, oxygen and a spark, there will be a fire.
Given: There is dry wood, oxygen and a spark
We can deduce: There will be a fire.
 Inductive Reasoning
Inductive reasoning is based on forming, or inducing a ‗generalization‘ from a
limited set of observations. Example:
Observation: All the crows that I have seen in my life are black.
Conclusion: All crows are black.
Thus the essential difference between deductive and inductive reasoning is that
inductive reasoning is based on experience while deductive reasoning is based
on rules, hence the latter will always be correct.
 Abductive Reasoning
Deduction is exact in the sense that deductions follow in a logically provable way
from the axioms. Abduction is a form of deduction that allows for plausible
(reasonable) inference, i.e. the conclusion might be wrong, Example:
Implication: She carries an umbrella if it is raining
Axiom: she is carrying an umbrella
Conclusion: It is raining
This conclusion might be false, because there could be other reasons that she is
carrying an umbrella, for instance she might be carrying it to protect herself from
the sun.

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 Analogical Reasoning
Analogical reasoning works by drawing analogies between two situations, looking
for similarities and differences, e.g. when you say driving a truck is just like
driving a car, by analogy you know that there are some similarities in the driving
mechanism, but you also know that there are certain other distinct characteristics
of each.
 Common-Sense Reasoning
Common-sense reasoning is an informal form of reasoning that uses rules
gained through experience or what we call rules-of-thumb. It operates on
heuristic knowledge and heuristic rules.
 Non-Monotonic Reasoning
Non-Monotonic reasoning is used when the facts of the case are likely to change
after some time, Example:
Rule: IF the wind blows
THEN the curtains sway
When the wind stops blowing, the curtains should sway no longer. However, if
we use monotonic reasoning, this would not happen. The fact that the curtains
are swaying would be retained even after the wind stopped blowing. In non
monotonic reasoning, we have a ―truth maintenance system‖. It keeps track of
what caused a fact to become true. If the cause is removed, that fact is removed
(retracted) also.

5.6 Knowledge Based System

A knowledge-based system (KBS) is a computer system which generates and utilizes
knowledge from different sources, data and information. These systems aid in solving
problems, especially complex ones, by utilizing artificial intelligence concepts. These
systems are mostly used in problem-solving procedures and to support human learning,
decision making and actions.

Knowledge-based systems are considered to be a major branch of artificial intelligence.

They are capable of making decisions based on the knowledge residing in them, and
can understand the context of the data that is being processed.

Knowledge-based systems broadly consist of an interface engine and knowledge base.

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The interface engine acts as the search engine, and the knowledge base acts as the
knowledge repository. Learning is an essential component of knowledge-based systems
and simulation of learning helps in the betterment of the systems. Knowledge-based
systems can be broadly classified as CASE-based systems, intelligent tutoring systems,
expert systems, hypertext manipulation systems and databases with intelligent user
interface.

Compared to traditional computer-based information systems, knowledge-based

systems have many advantages. They can provide efficient documentation and also
handle large amounts of unstructured data in an intelligent fashion. Knowledge-based
systems can aid in expert decision making and allow users to work at a higher level of
expertise and promote productivity and consistency. These systems are considered
very useful when expertise is unavailable, or when data needs to be stored for future
usage or needs to be grouped with different expertise at a common platform, thus
providing large-scale integration of knowledge. Finally, knowledge-based systems are
capable of creating new knowledge by referring to the stored content.

5.7 Facts
Facts are a basic block of knowledge (the atomic units of knowledge). They represent
declarative knowledge (they declare knowledge about objects). A proposition is the
statement of a fact. Each proposition has an associated truth value. It may be either true
or false. In AI, to represent a fact, we use a proposition and its associated truth value,
for example:
Proposition A: It is raining
Proposition B: I have an umbrella
Proposition C: I will go to school

Types of Facts
Single Valued or Multiple Valued
Facts may be single-valued or multi-valued, where each fact (attribute) can take one or
more than one values at the same time, for example an individual can only have one
eye color, but may have many cars. So the value of attribute cars may contain more
than one value.

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Uncertain Facts
Sometimes we need to represent uncertain information in facts. These facts are called
uncertain facts, e.g. it will probably be sunny today. We may chose to store numerical
certainty values with such facts that tell us how much uncertainty there is in the fact.
Fuzzy Facts
Fuzzy facts are ambiguous in nature, e.g. the book is heavy/light. Here it is unclear what
heavy means because it is a subjective description. Fuzzy representation is used for
such facts. While defining fuzzy facts, we use certainty factor values to specify value of
―truth‖. We will look at fuzzy representation in more detail later.
Object Attribute Value Triplets
Object-Attribute Value Triplets or OAV triplets are a type of fact composed of three
parts; object, attribute and value. Such facts are used to assert a particular property of
some object.
Example 1: Khalid’s Eye Color is Brown.
Object: Khalid
Attribute: Eye Color
Value: Brown
Example 2: Khalid’s daughter is Sara.
Object: Khalid
Attribute: Daughter
Value: Sara

5.8 Quantifying Uncertainty

Let‘s consider an example of uncertain reasoning as diagnosing a dental patient‘s
toothache.
Diagnosis—whether for medicine, automobile repair, or whatever—almost always
involves uncertainty. Let us try to write rules for dental diagnosis using propositional
logic, so that we can see how the logical approach breaks down.
Consider the following simple rule:
Toothache ⇒ Cavity
The problem is that this rule is wrong. Not all patients with toothaches have cavities;
some of them have gum disease, a sore, or one of several other problems:
Toothache ⇒ Cavity ∨ Gum Problem ∨ Sore ...

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Unfortunately, in order to make the rule true, we have to add an almost unlimited list of
possible problems. We could try turning the rule into a causal rule:
Cavity ⇒ Toothache
But this rule is not right either; not all cavities cause pain. The only way to fix the rule is
to make it logically exhaustive: to augment the left-hand side with all the qualifications
required for a cavity to cause a toothache. The connection between toothaches and
cavities is just not a logical consequence in either direction. This is typical of the medical
domain, as well as most other judgmental domains: law, business, design, automobile
repair, gardening, dating, and so on. The agent‘s knowledge can at best provide only a
degree of belief in the relevant sentences. Our main tool for dealing with degrees of
belief is probability theory.
5.9 Probabilistic Reasoning
Probabilistic reasoning is the concept of using logic and probability to handle uncertain
situations. An example of Probabilistic Reasoning is using past situations and statistics
to predict an outcome.
Bayes Theorem
One of the most significant developments in the probability field has been the
development of Bayesian decision theory which has proved to be of immense help in
making decisions under uncertain conditions. The Bayes Theorem was developed by a
British Mathematician Rev. Thomas Bayes. The probability given under Bayes theorem
is also known by the name of inverse probability, posterior probability or revised
probability. This theorem finds the probability of an event by considering the given
sample information; hence the name posterior probability.

Bayes theorem describes the probability of an event based on other information that
might be relevant. Essentially, you are estimating a probability, but then updating that
estimate based on other things that you know. This is something that you already do
every day in real life. For instance, if your friend is supposed to pick you up to go out to
dinner, you might have a mental estimate of if she will be on time, be 15 minutes late, or
be a half hour late. That would be your starting probability. Bayes theorem is a formal
way of doing that.
The equation for Bayes theorem is:

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Where,
A & B are events.
P(A) and P(B) are the probabilities of A and B without regard for each other.
P(A|B) is the conditional probability, the probability of A given that B is true.
P(B|A) is the probability of B given that A is true.

To solve Bayes theorem we should follow some steps as:

1) Determine what we want the probability of, and what we are observing
2) Estimate initial probabilities for all of the possible answers
3) For each of the initial possible answers, assume it is true and calculate the
probability of getting our observation with that possibility being true
4) Multiply the initial probabilities (Step 2) by the probabilities based on our
observation (Step 3) for each of the initial possible answers
5) Normalize the results (divide the each probability by the sum of the total
probabilities so that the new total probability is 1)
6) Repeat Steps 2-5 over and over for each new observation

Example 1:
Suppose that a test for using a particular drug is 99% sensitive and 99% specific. That
is, the test will produce 99% true positive results for drug users and 99% true negative
results for non-drug users. Suppose that 0.5% of people are users of the drug. What is
the probability that a randomly selected individual with a positive test is a drug user?

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Even if an individual tests positive, it is more likely that they do not use the drug than
that they do. This is because the number of non-users is large compared to the number
of users. The number of false positives outweighs the number of true positives. For
example, if 1000 individuals are tested, there are expected to be 995 non-users and 5
users. From the 995 non-users, 0.01 × 995 ≃ 10 false positives are expected. From the
5 users, 0.99 × 5 ≈ 5 true positives are expected. Out of 15 positive results, only 5 are
genuine.

The importance of specificity in this example can be seen by calculating that even if
sensitivity is raised to 100% and specificity remains at 99% then the probability of the
person being a drug user only rises from 33.2% to 33.4%, but if the sensitivity is held at
99% and the specificity is increased to 99.5% then the probability of the person being a
drug user rises to about 49.9%.

Example 2:
The entire output of a factory is produced on three machines. The three machines
account for 20%, 30%, and 50% of the factory output. The fraction of defective items
produced is 5% for the first machine; 3% for the second machine; and 1% for the third
machine. If an item is chosen at random from the total output and is found to be
defective, what is the probability that it was produced by the third machine?

Once again, the answer can be reached without recourse to the formula by applying the
conditions to any hypothetical number of cases. For example, if 100,000 items are
produced by the factory, 20,000 will be produced by Machine A, 30,000 by Machine B,
and 50,000 by Machine C. Machine A will produce 1000 defective items, Machine B
900, and Machine C 500. Of the total 2400 defective items, only 500, or 5/24 were
produced by Machine C.

A solution is as follows. Let Xi denote the event that a randomly chosen item was made
by the i th machine (for i = A,B,C). Let Y denote the event that a randomly chosen item is
defective. Then, we are given the following information:

If the item was made by the first machine, then the probability that it is defective is 0.05;
that is, P(Y | XA) = 0.05. Overall, we have

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To answer the original question, we first find P(Y). That can be done in the following
way:

Hence 2.4% of the total output of the factory is defective.

We are given that Y has occurred, and we want to calculate the conditional probability
of XC. By Bayes' theorem,

Given that the item is defective, the probability that it was made by the third machine is
only 5/24. Although machine C produces half of the total output, it produces a much
smaller fraction of the defective items. Hence the knowledge that the item selected was
defective enables us to replace the prior probability P(XC) = 1/2 by the smaller posterior
probability P(XC | Y) = 5/24.

Probabilistic Reasoning over Time

In the Bayesian theorem we have seen static situations where each random variable
gets a single fixed value in a single problem. Now we consider the problem of
describing probabilistic environments that evolve over time. Examples: Robot
localization, tracking speech etc.

Hidden Markov Model

The hidden Markov model can be represented as the simplest dynamic Bayesian
network. The current state is conditionally independent of all the other states given the
state in the previous time step.

The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) provides a framework for modelling daily rainfall
occurrences and amounts on multi-site rainfall networks. The HMM fits a model to
observed rainfall records by introducing a small number of discrete rainfall states. These
states allow a diagnostic interpretation of observed rainfall variability in terms of a few
rainfall patterns. They are not directly observable, or 'hidden' from the observer.

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The time sequence of which state is active on each day follows a Markov chain. Thus,
the state which is active 'today' depends only on the state which was active 'yesterday'
according to transition probabilities.

The HMM also allows you to simulate rainfall at each of the station locations, such that
key statistical properties (eg. rainfall probabilities, dry/wet spell lengths) of the simulated
rainfall match those of the observed rainfall records. This can be useful for generating
large numbers of synthetic realizations of rainfall for input into statistical analysis, or
input into a crop simulation model.

5.10 Making Simple Decision

 In many cases, our knowledge of the world is incomplete (not enough information)
or uncertain (sensors are unreliable).
 Often, rules about the domain are incomplete or even incorrect - in the qualification
problem, for example, what are the preconditions for an action?
 We have to act in spite of this!
 Drawing conclusions under uncertainty.

Example:
 Goal: Be in Campus at 8:20 AM to give a lecture.
 There are several plans that achieve the goal:
 P1: Get up at 7:00, take the bus at 7:30 AM, arrive at 8:00.
 P2: Get up at 7:30 AM, walk to campus and arrive at 8:00.
 All these plans are correct, but
 They imply different costs and different probabilities of actually achieving the
goal.
 P2 eventually is the plan of choice, since giving a lecture is very important, and
the success rate of P1 is only 90-95%.

Uncertainty and Rational Decisions

 We have a choice of actions (or plans).
 These can lead to different solutions with different probabilities.
 The actions have different (subjective) costs.
 The results have different (subjective) utilities.
 It would be rational to choose the action with the maximum expected total utility!

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Decision Theory = Utility Theory + Probability Theory

5.11 Making Complex Decisions
 The agent‘s utility now depends on a sequence of decisions.
 In the following 4 × 3 grid environment the agent makes a decision to move (U, R,
D, L) at each time step.
 When the agent reaches one of the goal states, it terminates.
 The environment is fully observable — the agent always knows where it is

 If the environment were deterministic, a solution would be easy: the agent will
always reach +1 with moves [U, U, R, R, R]
 Because actions are unreliable, a sequence of moves will not always lead to the
desired outcome
 Let each action achieve the intended effect with probability 0.8 but with probability
0.1 the action moves the agent to either of the right angles to the intended direction
 If the agent bumps into a wall, it stays in the same square
 Now the sequence [U, U, R, R, R] leads to the goal state with probability 0.85 =
0.32768
 In addition, the agent has a small chance of reaching the goal by accident going the
other way around the obstacle with a probability 0.14 × 0.8, for a grand total of
0.32776
 A transition model specifies outcome probabilities for each action in each possible
state
 Let P(s‘ | s, a) denote the probability of reaching state s' if action a is done in state s
 The transitions are Markovian in the sense that the probability of reaching s‘

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depends only on s and not the earlier states
 We still need to specify the utility function for the agent
 The decision problem is sequential, so the utility function depends on a sequence of
states — an environment history — rather than on a single state
 For now, we will simply stipulate that is each state s, the agent receives a reward
R(s), which may be positive or negative
 For our particular example, the reward is -0.04 in all states except in the terminal
states
 The utility of an environment history is just (for now) the sum of rewards received
 If the agent reaches the state +1, e.g., after ten steps, its total utility will be 0.6
 The small negative reward gives the agent an incentive to reach [4, 3] quickly
 A sequential decision problem for a fully observable environment with
 A Markovian transition model and
 Additive rewards
is called a Markov decision problem (MDP)

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Chapter 6 – Learning
6.1 Introduction to Learning
Learning can be described as normally a relatively permanent change that occurs in
behavior as a result of experience. Learning occurs in various regimes. For example, it
is possible to learn to open a lock as a result of trial and error; possible to learn how to
use a word processor as a result of following particular instructions.
Once the internal model of what ought to happen is set, it is possible to learn by
practicing the skill until the performance converges on the desired model. One begins
by paying attention to what needs to be done, but with more practice, one will need to
monitor only the trickier parts of the performance. Automatic performance of some skills
by the brain points out that the brain is capable of doing things in parallel i.e. one part is
devoted to the skill whilst another part mediates conscious experience. The definition of
Learning is as follow:
 "Learning denotes changes in a system that ... enables a system to do the same
task more efficiently the next time." By Herbert Simon.
 "Learning is constructing or modifying representations of what is being
experienced." By Ryszard Michalski.
 "Learning is making useful changes in our minds." By Marvin Minsky.

What is Machine Learning

The goal of machine learning is to build computer systems that can learn from their
experience and adapt to their environments. Obviously, learning is an important aspect
or component of intelligence. There are both theoretical and practical reasons to
support such a claim. Some people even think intelligence is nothing but the ability to
learn, though other people think an intelligent system has a separate "learning
mechanism" which improves the performance of other mechanisms of the system.
In simple words, we can say that machine learning is the competency of the software to
perform a single or series of tasks intelligently without being programmed for those
activities. This is part of Artificial Intelligence. Normally, the software behaves the way
the programmer programmed it; while machine learning is going one step further by
making the software capable of accomplishing intended tasks by using statistical
analysis and predictive analytics techniques.

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Why do we want Machine Learning?

One response to the idea of AI is to say that computers can not think because they only
do what their programmers tell them to do. However, it is not always easy to tell what a
particular program will do, but given the same inputs and conditions it will always
produce the same outputs. If the program gets something right once it will always get it
right. If it makes a mistake once it will always make the same mistake every time it runs.
In contrast to computers, humans learn from their mistakes; attempt to work out why
things went wrong and try alternative solutions. Also, we are able to notice similarities
between things, and therefore can generate new ideas about the world we live in. Any
intelligence, however artificial or unknown, that did not learn would not be much of
intelligence. So, machine learning is a prerequisite for any mature programme of
artificial intelligence.
Three Phases of Machine Learning
 Training: a training set of examples of correct behavior is analyzed and some
representation of the newly learnt knowledge is stored. This is often some form of
rules.
 Validation: the rules are checked and, if necessary, additional training is given.
Sometimes additional test data are used, but instead of using a human to validate
the rules, some other automatic knowledge based component may be used. The
role of tester is often called the critic.
 Application: the rules are used in responding to some new situations.

These phases may not be distinct. For example, there may not be an explicit validation
phase; instead, the learning algorithm guarantees some form of correctness. Also in
some circumstances, systems learn "on the job", that is, the training and application
phases overlap.

How does Machine Learning Works?

Machine Learning is a technique which works intelligently by using some complex
algorithms and set of predefined rules. It uses the past data to read the patterns and
then based on the analysis it generates the relevant data or performs the intended task
abiding the defined rules and algorithms.
For example, whenever we typed in something on the search bar, the search engines

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uses this machine learning technique to display the related contents. It intelligently
reads the vast data on the web, indexes, ranking, and based on the defined rules and
algorithm it displays the search results. Let‘s discuss the basic steps involved in
machine learning techniques.
 The first step is to gathering the past data from the various sources such as excel
files, text files or any other provider. The quality of related data is the foundation
of learning for the software, the more relevant the data, the better learning for the
software.
 The next step is data preparation. The programmer spends time on preparing the
quality data and fixing the data issues. The missing data should be rectified to
improve the data quality.
 Develop the data model with appropriate algorithms. The models are developed
and tested with relevant algorithms which enable the software to read the correct
data sets intelligently in the real world.
 Next step is to testing the model‘s accuracy using the data sets used while
developing the models and also the data sets which were not used while
developing the models. It shows the model‘s performance and accuracy with the
optimum level of precisions.
 Finally, check and improve the performance by using various data sets which
were not used earlier. That shows the software‘s capabilities to read new data
sets based on the rules defined in the programmed algorithms.

6.2 Learning Techniques

Rote Learning
In this kind of learning there is no prior knowledge. When a computer stores a piece of
data, it is performing an elementary form of learning. This act of storage presumably
allows the program to perform better in the future. Examples of correct behavior are
stored and when a new situation arises it is matched with the learnt examples. The
values are stored so that they are not re-computed later. One of the earliest game-
playing programs is checkers program. This program learned to play checkers well
enough to beat its creator/designer.
Deductive Learning
Deductive learning works on existing facts and knowledge and deduces new knowledge

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from the old. This is best illustrated by giving an example. For example, assume:
A=B
B=C
Then we can deduce with much confidence that:
C=A
Arguably, deductive learning does not generate "new" knowledge at all, it simply
memorizes the logical consequences of what is known already. This implies that
virtually all mathematical research would not be classified as learning "new" things.
However, regardless of whether this is termed as new knowledge or not, it certainly
makes the reasoning system more efficient.

Inductive Learning
Inductive learning takes examples and generalizes rather than starting with existing
knowledge. For example, having seen many cats, all of which have tails, one might
conclude that all cats have tails. This is an unsound step of reasoning but it would be
impossible to function without using induction to some extent. In many areas it is an
explicit assumption. There is scope of error in inductive reasoning, but still it is a useful
technique that has been used as the basis of several successful systems.
One major subclass of inductive learning is concept learning. This takes examples of a
concept and tries to build a general description of the concept. Very often, the examples
sare described using attribute-value pairs. The example of inductive learning given here
is that of a fish. Look at the table below:

Cat Dog Whale Cow

Swims No No Yes No

Has Lungs Yes Yes Yes Yes

Is a Fish No No No No

In the above example, there are various ways of generalizing from examples of fish and
non-fish. The simplest description can be that a fish is something that does not have
lungs. No other single attribute would serve to differentiate the fish.

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6.3 Applied Learning

Solving Real World Problems with Learning
We do not yet know how to make computers learn nearly as well as people learn.
However, algorithms have been developed that are effective for certain types of learning
tasks, and many significant commercial applications have begun to appear. For
problems such as speech recognition, algorithms based on machine learning
outperform all other approaches that have been attempted to date. In other emergent
fields like computer vision and data mining, machine learning algorithms are being used
to recognize faces and to extract valuable information and knowledge from large
commercial databases respectively. Some of the applications that use learning
algorithms include:
 Spoken digits and word recognition
 Handwriting recognition
 Driving autonomous vehicles
 Path finders
 Intelligent homes
 Intrusion detectors
 Intelligent refrigerators, tvs, vacuum cleaners
 Computer games
 Humanoid robotics
This is just the glimpse of the applications that use some intelligent learning
components. The current era has applied learning in the domains ranging from
agriculture to astronomy to medical sciences.
General Model of Learning Agent (Pattern Recognition)
Any given learning problem is primarily composed of three things:
 Input
 Processing unit
 Output
The input is composed of examples that help the learner learn the underlying problem
concept. Suppose we were to build the learner for recognizing spoken digits. We would
ask some of our friends to record their sounds for each digit [0 to 9]. Positive examples
of digit ‗1‘ would be the spoken digit ‗1‘, by the speakers. Negative examples for digit ‗1‘

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would be all the rest of the digits. For our learner to learn the digit ‗1‘, it would need
positive and negative examples of digit ‗1‘ in order to truly learn the difference between
digits ‗1‘ and the rest. The processing unit is the learning agent in our focus of study.
6.4 Symbol Based Learning
Ours is a world of symbols. We use symbolic interpretations to understand the world
around us. For instance, if we saw a ship, and were to tell a friend about its size, we will
not say that we saw a 254.756 meters long ship, instead we‘d say that we saw a ‗huge‘
ship about the size of ‗Eiffel tower‘. And our friend would understand the relationship
between the size of the ship and its hugeness with the analogies of the symbolic
information associated with the two words used: ‗huge‘ and ‗Eiffel tower‘.
Similarly, the techniques we are to learn now use symbols to represent knowledge and
information. Let us consider a small example to help us see where we‘re headed. What
if we were to learn the concept of a GOOD STUDENT? We would need to define, first of
all some attributes of a student, on the basis of which we could tell apart the good
student from the average. Then we would require some examples of good students and
average students. To keep the problem simple we can label all the students who are
―not good‖ (average, below average, satisfactory, bad) as NOT GOOD STUDENT. Let‘s
say we choose two attributes to define a student: grade and class participation. Both the
attributes can have either of the two values: High, Low. Our learner program will require
some examples from the concept of a student, for instance:
1. Student (GOOD STUDENT): Grade (High) ^ Class Participation (High)

2. Student (GOOD STUDENT): Grade (High) ^ Class Participation (Low)

3. Student (NOT GOOD STUDENT): Grade (Low) ^ Class Participation (High)

4. Student (NOT GOOD STUDENT): Grade (Low) ^ Class Participation (Low)

As you can see the system is composed of symbolic information, based on which the
learner can even generalize that a student is a GOOD STUDENT if his/her grade is
high, even if the class participation is low:
Student (GOOD STUDENT): Grade (High) ^ Class Participation (?)
This is the final rule that the learner has learnt from the enumerated examples. Here the
‗?‘ means that the attribute class participation can have any value, as long as the grade
is high.

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6.5 Problem and Problem Spaces

In theoretical computer science there are two main branches of problems: Tractable
and Intractable. Those problems that can be solved in polynomial time are termed as
tractable; the other half is called intractable. The tractable problems are further divided
into structured and complex problems. Structured problems are those which have
defined steps through which the solution to the problem is reached. Complex problems
usually don‘t have well-defined steps. Machine learning algorithms are particularly more
useful in solving the complex problems like recognition of patterns in images or speech,
for which it‘s hard to come up with procedural algorithms. The solution to any problem is
a function that converts its inputs to corresponding outputs. To understand this concept
let us discuss this example:
Let us consider the domain of HEALTH. The problem in this case is to distinguish
between a sick and a healthy person. Suppose we have some domain knowledge;
keeping a simplistic approach, we say that two attributes are necessary and sufficient to
declare a person as healthy or sick. These two attributes are: Temperature (T) and
Blood Pressure (BP). Any patient coming into the hospital can have three values for T
and BP: High (H), Normal (N) and Low (L). Based on these values, the person is to be
classified as Sick (SK). SK is a Boolean concept, SK = 1 means the person is sick and
SK = 0 means person is healthy. So the concept to be learnt by the system is of Sick,
i.e., SK=1.
Instance Space
How many distinct instances can the concept sick have? Since there are two attributes:
T and BP, each having 3 values, there can be a total of 9 possible distinct instances in
all. If we were to list these, we‘ll get the following table:
X T BP SK
X1 L L -
X2 L N -
X3 L H -
X4 N L -
X5 N N -
X6 N H -
X7 H L -
X8 H N -
X9 H H -

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This is the entire instance space, denoted by X, and the individual instances are
denoted by xi. |X| gives us the size of the instance space, which in this case are 9.
|X| = 9
The set X is the entire data possibly available for any concept. However, sometimes in
real world problems, we don‘t have the liberty to have access to the entire set X, instead
we have a subset of X, known as training data, denoted by D, available to us, on the
basis of which we make our learner learn the concept.
Concept Space
A concept is the representation of the problem with respect to the given attributes, for
example, if we‘re talking about the problem scenario of concept SICK defined over the
attributes T and BP, then the concept space is defined by all the combinations of values
of SK for every instance x. One of the possible concepts for the concept SICK might be
listed in the following table:
X T BP SK
X1 L L 0
X2 L N 0
X3 L H 1
X4 N L 0
X5 N N 0
X6 N H 1
X7 H L 1
X8 H N 1
X9 H H 1

But there are a lot of other possibilities besides this one. The question is: how many
total concepts can be generated out of this given situation. The answer is: 2 |x|.
Hypothesis Space
In this space the learner has to apply some hypothesis, which has either a search or the
language bias to reduce the size of the concept space. This reduced concept space
becomes the hypothesis space. For example, the most common language bias is that
the hypothesis space uses the conjunctions (AND) of the attributes, i.e. H = <T, BP>
H is the denotive representation of the hypothesis space; here it is the conjunction of
attribute T and BP. If written in English it would mean:
H = <T, BP>:
IF ―Temperature‖ = T AND ―Blood Pressure‖ = BP

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THEN
H=1
ELSE
H=0
Version Space and Searching
Version space is a set of all the hypotheses that are consistent with all the training
examples. When we are given a set of training examples D, it is possible that there
might be more than one hypotheses from the hypothesis space that are consistent with
all the training examples. By consistent we mean h(xi) = C(xi). That is, if the true output
of a concept [c(xi)] is 1 or 0 for an instance, then the output by our hypothesis [h(xi)] is 1
or 0 as well, respectively. If this is true for every instance in our training set D, we can
say that the hypothesis is consistent.
X T BP SK
X1 H H 1
X2 L L 0
X3 N N 0

6.6 Introduction to Neural Network

In the area of Computer Science a Neural Network is a system of programs and data
structures that approximates the operation of the human brain. A neural network usually
involves a large number of processors operating in parallel, each with its own small
sphere of knowledge and access to data in its local memory. Typically, a neural network
is initially "trained" or fed large amounts of data and rules about data relationships (for
example, "A grandfather is older than a person's father"). A program can then tell the
network how to behave in response to an external stimulus (for example, to input from a
computer user who is interacting with the network) or can initiate activity on its own
(within the limits of its access to the external world).
In making determinations, neural networks use several principles, including gradient-
based training, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, and Bayesian methods. Neural networks
are sometimes described in terms of knowledge layers, with, in general, more complex
networks having deeper layers. Current applications of neural networks include: oil
exploration data analysis, weather prediction, the interpretation of nucleotide sequences
in biology labs, and the exploration of models of thinking and consciousness.

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The term neural network was traditionally used to refer to a network or circuit of
biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural
networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus the term has two
distinct usages:
 Biological neural networks are made up of real biological neurons that are
connected or functionally related in a nervous system. In the field of neuro-
science, they are often identified as groups of neurons that perform a specific
physiological function in laboratory analysis.
 Artificial neural networks are composed of interconnecting artificial neurons
(programming constructs that mimic the properties of biological neurons).
Artificial neural networks may either be used to gain an understanding of
biological neural networks, or for solving artificial intelligence problems without
necessarily creating a model of a real biological system. The real, biological
nervous system is highly complex: artificial neural network algorithms attempt to
abstract this complexity and focus on what may hypothetically matter most from
an information processing point of view. Good performance (e.g. as measured by
good predictive ability, low generalization error), or performance mimicking
animal or human error patterns, can then be used as one source of evidence
towards supporting the hypothesis that the abstraction really captured something
important from the point of view of information processing in the brain. Another
incentive for these abstractions is to reduce the amount of computation required
to simulate artificial neural networks, so as to allow one to experiment with larger
networks and train them on larger data sets.
Comparision between Human and Brain

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While this clearly shows that the human information processing system is superior to
conventional computers, but still it is possible to realize an artificial neural network
which exhibits the above mentioned properties.
Directions and Classifications of Neural Network
The Neural Networks can roughly be classified into four different types of orientations
which includes its applications to real-world problems.
 In Cognitive science/Artificial intelligence, the interest is in modeling
intelligent behavior. The interest in neural networks is mostly to overcome the
problems and pitfalls of classical and symbolic methods of modeling intelligence.
 Neurobiological modeling has the goal to develop models of biological
neurons. Here, the exact properties of the neurons play an essential role. In most
of these models there is a level of activation of an individual neuron.
 Scientific modeling uses neural networks as modeling tools. In physics,
psychology, and sociology neural networks have been successfully applied.
 Computer science views neural networks as an interesting class of algorithms
that has properties like noise and fault tolerance, and generalization ability– that
make them suited for application to real-world problems.

Applications of Neural Network

Neural Networks are now applied in many areas of science. Here are some few
examples:
 Optimization: Neural networks have been applied to almost many kind of
optimization problem. Conversely, neural network learning can often be
conceived as an optimization problem in which it will minimize a kind of error
function.
 Control: Many complex control problems have been solved by neural networks.
They are especially popular for robot control. Such as autonomous robots - like
humanoids, that have to operate in real world environments that are
characterized by higher level rapid change. Since biological neural networks
have evolved for precisely these kinds of conditions, they are well suited for such
types of tasks. Also, because in the real world generalization is crucial, neural
networks is often the tool of choice for systems, in particular robots, having
interacted with physical environments.

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 Signal Processing: Neural networks have been used to distinguish mines from
rocks using sonar signals, to detect sun eruptions, and to process speech
signals. Speech processing techniques and statistical approaches involving
hidden models are sometimes combined.
 Pattern Recognition: Neural networks have been widely used for pattern
recognition purposes, from face recognition, to recognition of tumors in various
types of scans, to identification of plastic explosives in luggage of aircraft
passengers (which yield a particular gamma radiation patterns when subjected to
a stream of thermal neurons), to recognition of hand-written zip-codes.
 Stock market prediction: The dream of every mathematician is to develop
methods for predicting the development of stock prices. Neural networks, in
combination with other methods, are often used in this area. However, it is an
open question whether they have been really successful.

Learning Rule
Weights are modified by learning rules. The learning rules determine how experiences
of a network use their influence on its future behavior. There are basically three types of
learning rules.
 Supervised Learning Rule: The term supervised is used both in general as well
as narrow technical sense. In the narrow technical sense supervised means the
following. If for a certain input the corresponding output is known, the network is
to learn the mapping from inputs to outputs. In supervised learning applications,
the correct output must be known and provided to the learning algorithm. The
task of the network is to find the mapping. The weights are changed depending
on the magnitude of the error that the network produces at the output layer, if the
error is larger than the weight changes more. This is why the term error-
correction learning is also used. Examples are the Perceptron learning rule, the
delta rule, and - most famous of all - Backprpagation.
 Reinforcement Learning: If the teacher only tells a student whether his answer
is correct or not, but leaves the task of determining why the answer is correct or
false to the student, which means reinforcement learning. The problem of
attributing the error (or the success) to the right cause is called the credit
assignment or blame assignment problem. It is fundamental to many learning

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theories. There is also a more technical meaning of the term of reinforcement
learning as it is used in the neural network literature. It is used to designate
learning where a particular behavior is to be reinforced. Typically, the robot
receives a positive reinforcement signal if the result was good, no reinforcement
or a negative reinforcement signal if it was bad. If the robot has managed to pick
up an object, or if it has managed to shoot the ball into the goal, it will get a
positive reinforcement. Reinforcement learning is not tied to neural networks,
there are many reinforcement learning algorithms in the field of machine learning
in general.
 Unsupervised Learning: Mainly two categories of learning rules fall under this
unsupervised learning as Hebbian learning and competitive learning. Hebbian
learning establishes correlations such as if two nodes are active simultaneously
the connection between them is strengthened. Hebbian learning has become
popular because it is not very powerful as a learning mechanism. In industrial
applications, Hebbian learning is not used. Competitive learning, in particular
Kohonen networks is used to find clusters in data sets. In addition, they have
been put to many industrial usages.

6.7 Introduction to Planning

The key in planning is to use logic in order to solve problem elegantly. Planning is an
advanced form of problem solving which generates a sequence of operators that
guarantee the goal. Furthermore, such sequence of operators or actions (commonly
used in planning literature) is called a plan. STRIPS is one of the founding languages
developed particularly for planning.
What is planning in Artificial Intelligence?
 The planning in Artificial Intelligence is about the decision making tasks
performed by the robots or computer programs to achieve a specific goal.
 The execution of planning is about choosing a sequence of actions with a high
likelihood to complete the specific task.
Planning VS Problem Solving
Planning introduces the following improvements with respect to problem solving:
 Each state is represented in predicate logic. De-facto representation of a state is
the conjunction (AND) of predicates that are true in that state.

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 The goal is also represented as states, i.e. conjunction of predicates.

 Each action (or operator) is associated with some logic preconditions that must
be true for that action to be applied. Thus a planning system can avoid any action
that is just not possible at a particular state.
 Each action is associated with an ‗effect‘ or post-conditions. These post
conditions specify the added and/or deleted predicates when the action is
applied.
 The inference mechanism used is that of backward chaining so as to use only
the actions and states that are really required to reach goal state.
 Optional: The sequence of actions (plan) is minimally ordered. Only those actions
are ordered in a sequence when any other order will not achieve the desired
goal. Therefore, planning allows partial ordering i.e. there can be two actions that
are not in any order from each other because any particular order used amongst
them will achieve the same goal.

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