CHAPTER 4

KNOWLEDGE
REPRESENTATION AND
REASONING
OUTLINE
 Knowledge Based Agents
 Logic
 Propositional Logic
KNOWLEDGE-BASED AGENTS

 Intelligent agents
need knowledge about the real world
for taking decisions and reasoning to
act efficiently.
 Knowledge-based agents are those
agents who have the capability of:
 Maintaining an internal state of knowledge
 Reason over that knowledge
 Update their knowledge after observations
and
 Take actions
CONT’D…
A KBA must able to do the following:
 An agent should be able to represent
states, actions, etc.
 An agent should be able to incorporate
new percepts
 An agent can update the internal
representation of the world
 An agent can deduce the internal
representation of the world
 An agent can deduce appropriate
actions.
CONT’D…
 In AI, knowledge-based agents use
a process of reasoning over an
internal representation of knowledge
to decide what actions to take.
 These agents can represent the world
with some formal representation and
act intelligently.
 KBAs are composed of two main parts:
 Knowledge-base (KB) and
 Inference system
CONT’D…
1. Knowledge Base (KB)
 It is the central component of a knowledge-
based agent.
 A knowledge base is a set of sentences.
 Sentence is used as a technical term.
 It is related but not identical to the sentences
of English and other natural languages.
 Each sentence is expressed in a language
called a knowledge representation
language and represents some assertion
about the world.
CONT’D…
 There must be a way to add new
sentences to the knowledge base and a
way to query what is known.
 The standard names for these
operations are TELL and ASK,
respectively.
 Both operations may involve inference.

Inference
 Inference is deriving new sentences
from old.
LOGIC
 Knowledge bases consist of sentences.
 These sentences are expressed
according to the syntax of the
representation language, which
specifies all the sentences that are
well formed.
 Example: “x + y = 4” is a well-formed
sentence, whereas “x4y+ = “is not.
A logic must also define the
semantics, or meaning, of sentences.
CONT’D…
 The semantics defines the truth of
each sentence with respect to each
possible world.
 For example, the semantics for
arithmetic specifies that the
sentence “x + y = 4” is true in a
world where x is 2 and y is 2, but
false in a world where x is 1 and y is
1.
PROPOSITIONAL LOGIC
 Propositionallogic (PL) is the simplest
form of logic where all the statements
are made by propositions.
A proposition is a declarative
statement which is either true or false.
 It is a technique of knowledge
representation in logical and
mathematical form.
 The syntax of propositional logic
defines the allowable sentences.
CONT’D…
 There are two types of propositions:
1. Atomic Propositions

2. Compound propositions

1. Atomic Propositions
 The atomic sentences consist of a

single proposition symbol.

 Each such symbol stands for a
proposition that can be true or false.
CONT’D…
 Examples of atomic propositions:
a) 2+2 is 4, it is an atomic proposition
as it is a true fact.
b) "The Sun is cold" is also a propositio
n as it is a false fact.
2. Complex Propositions
 Complex sentences are constructed

from simpler sentences, using

parentheses and operators called
logical connectives.
CONT’D…
 Logical connectives are used to
connect two simpler propositions or
representing a sentence logically.
 There are five connectives in common

use:
1. Negation:
 A sentence such as ¬ P is called

negation of P.
 A literal can be either Positive literal

or negative literal.
CONT’D…
2. Conjunction:
 A sentence which has ∧ connective

such as, P ∧ Q is called a

conjunction.
 Example: Chala is intelligent and
hardworking.
 It can be written as:

 P= Chala is intelligent,
 Q= Chala is hardworking. → P∧ Q.
CONT’D…
3. Disjunction:
 A sentence which has ∨ connective, such as P

∨ Q is called disjunction, where P and Q are the

propositions.
 Example: “Chala is a doctor or Engineer"

 P= Chala is Doctor

 Q= Chala is engineer, so we can write it as P ∨

Q.
4. Implication:
 A sentence such as P → Q, is called an

implication.
 Implications are also known as if-then rules.
CONT’D…
 It can be represented as:
 If it is raining, then the street is wet.
 Let P= It is raining, and Q= Street is

wet, so it is represented as P → Q
5. Biconditional:
 A sentence such as P⇔ Q is a

Biconditional sentence
 Example: If I am breathing, then I am

alive
 P= I am breathing, Q= I am alive, it can be
represented as P ⇔ Q.
Cont’d…
 The semantics define the rules to
determine the truth of a sentence
with respect to a particular model.
 In propositional logic, a model simply

sets the truth value-true or false-for

every proposition symbol.
 Semantics can be specified by truth

tables.
CONT’D…
CONT’D…
CONT’D…
Precedence of operators
 Just like arithmetic operators, there is a

precedence order for propositional

connectors or logical operators.
 List of the precedence order for operators

are:
 Parentheses
 Negation
 Conjunction (AND)
 Disjunction (OR)
 Implication
 Biconditional
CONT’D…
Logical equivalence
 Two propositions are said to be
logically equivalent if and only if the
columns in the truth table are
identical to each other.
CONT’D…
Properties of Operators:
• Commutativity:

• P∧ Q= Q ∧ P, or
• P ∨ Q = Q ∨ P
• Associativity:

• (P ∧ Q) ∧ R= P ∧ (Q ∧ R),
• (P ∨ Q) ∨ R= P ∨ (Q ∨ R)
• Double-negation elimination:

• ¬ (¬P) = P.
CONT’D…
• Identity element:
• P ∧ True = P,
• P ∨ True= True.
• Distributive:
• P∧ (Q ∨ R) = (P ∧ Q) ∨ (P ∧ R).
• P ∨ (Q ∧ R) = (P ∨ Q) ∧ (P ∨ R).
• DE Morgan's Law:
• ¬ (P ∧ Q) = (¬P) ∨ (¬Q)
• ¬ (P ∨ Q) = (¬ P) ∧ (¬Q).