COURSE OBJECTIVES

To understand the various characteristics of Intelligent agents.

To learn the different search strategies in AI.
To learn to represent knowledge in solving AI problems.
To know about the various applications of AI.

UNIT 1 INTRODUCTION TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 9 Hrs.

Introduction–Definition – Future of Artificial Intelligence – Characteristics of Intelligent
Agents–Typical Intelligent Agents – Problem Solving Approach to Typical AI problems.
UNIT 2 PROBLEM SOLVING METHODS 9 Hrs.
Problem solving Methods – Search Strategies- Uninformed – Informed – Heuristics – Local
Search Algorithms and Optimization Problems – Searching with Partial Observations –
Constraint Satisfaction Problems – Constraint Propagation – Backtracking Search – Game
Playing – Optimal Decisions in Games – Alpha – Beta Pruning – Stochastic Games.
UNIT 3 KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION 9 Hrs.
First Order Predicate Logic – Prolog Programming – Unification – Forward Chaining-
Backward Chaining – Resolution – Knowledge Representation – Ontological Engineering-
Categories and Objects – Events – Mental Events and Mental Objects – Reasoning Systems for
Categories – Reasoning with Default Information.
UNIT 4 SOFTWARE AGENTS 9 Hrs.
Architecture for Intelligent Agents – Agent communication – Negotiation and Bargaining –
Argumentation among Agents – Trust and Reputation in Multi-agent systems.
UNIT 5 APPLICATIONS 9 Hrs.
AI applications – Language Models – Information Retrieval- Information Extraction – Natural
Language Processing – Machine Translation – Speech Recognition.
Max. 45 Hrs.
COURSE OUTCOMES
On completion of the course, student will be able to
CO1 - Understand the principles of Artificial Intelligence.
CO2 - Use appropriate search algorithms for any AI problem.
CO3 - Represent a problem using first order and predicate logic.
CO4 - Provide the apt agent strategy to solve a given problem.
CO5 - Design software agents to solve a problem.
CO6 - Design applications for NLP that use Artificial Intelligence.

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 UNIT 1

INTRODUCTIONTO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Introduction–Definition –Future of Artificial Intelligence –Characteristics of Intelligent
Agents– Typical Intelligent Agents –Problem Solving Approach to Typical AI problems.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

INTELLIGENCE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

It is a natural process. It is programmed by humans.
It is actually hereditary. It is not hereditary.
Knowledge is required for intelligence. KB and electricity are required to generate
output.
No human is an expert. We may get better Expert systems are made which aggregate
solutions from other humans. many person’s experience and ideas.

1.2 DEFINITION

The study of how to make computers do things at which at the moment, people are better.
“Artificial Intelligence is the ability of a computer to act like a human being”.

• Systems that think like humans

• Systems that act like humans
• Systems that think rationally. Systems that act rationally.

Figure 1.1 Some definitions of artificial intelligence, organized into four categories

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(a) Intelligence - Ability to apply knowledge in order to perform better in an environment.
(b) Artificial Intelligence - Study and construction of agent programs that perform well in
a given environment, for a given agent architecture.
(c) Agent - An entity that takes action in response to precepts from an environment.
(d) Rationality - property of a system which does the “right thing” given what it knows.
(e) Logical Reasoning - A process of deriving new sentences from old, such that the new
sentences are necessarily true if the old ones are true.

Four Approaches of Artificial Intelligence:

➢ Acting humanly: The Turing test approach.
➢ Thinking humanly: The cognitive modelling approach.
➢ Thinking rationally: The laws of thought approach.
➢ Acting rationally: The rational agent approach.

1.3 ACTING HUMANLY: THE TURING TEST APPROACH

The Turing Test, proposed by Alan Turing (1950), was designed to provide a
satisfactory operational definition of intelligence. A computer passes the test if a human
interrogator, after posing some written questions, cannot tell whether the written responses
come from a person or from a computer.

Figure 1.2 Turing Test

• natural language processing to enable it to communicate successfully in English;

• knowledge representation to store what it knows or hears;
• automated reasoning to use the stored information to answer questions and to draw
new conclusions
• machine learning to adapt to new circumstances and to detect and extrapolate patterns.

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 Total Turing Test includes a video signal so that the interrogator can test the subject’s
perceptual abilities, as well as the opportunity for the interrogator to pass physical objects
“through the hatch.” To pass the total Turing Test, the computer will need

• computer vision to perceive objects, and robotics to manipulate objects and move
about.

Thinking humanly: The cognitive modelling approach

Analyse how a given program thinks like a human, we must have some way of
determining how humans think. The interdisciplinary field of cognitive science brings together
computer models from AI and experimental techniques from psychology to try to construct
precise and testable theories of the workings of the human mind.

Although cognitive science is a fascinating field in itself, we are not going to be

discussing it all that much in this book. We will occasionally comment on similarities or
differences between AI techniques and human cognition. Real cognitive science, however, is
necessarily based on experimental investigation of actual humans or animals, and we assume
that the reader only has access to a computer for experimentation. We will simply note that AI
and cognitive science continue to fertilize each other, especially in the areas of vision, natural
language, and learning.

Thinking rationally: The “laws of thought” approach

The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the first to attempt to codify ``right
thinking,'' that is, irrefutable reasoning processes. His famous syllogisms provided patterns for
argument structures that always gave correct conclusions given correct premises.

For example, ``Socrates is a man; all men are mortal; therefore Socrates is mortal.''

These laws of thought were supposed to govern the operation of the mind, and initiated
the field of logic.

Acting rationally: The rational agent approach

Acting rationally means acting so as to achieve one's goals, given one's beliefs. An
agent is just something that perceives and acts.

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

Does not necessary involve thinking.

For Example - blinking reflex- but should be in the service of rational action.

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1.4 FUTURE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• Transportation: Although it could take a decade or more to perfect them, autonomous

cars will one day ferry us from place to place.

• Manufacturing: AI powered robots work alongside humans to perform a limited range

of tasks like assembly and stacking, and predictive analysis sensors keep equipment
running smoothly.

• Healthcare: In the comparatively AI-nascent field of healthcare, diseases are more

quickly and accurately diagnosed, drug discovery is sped up and streamlined, virtual
nursing assistants monitor patients and big data analysis helps to create a more
personalized patient experience.

• Education: Textbooks are digitized with the help of AI, early-stage virtual tutors assist
human instructors and facial analysis gauges the emotions of students to help determine
who’s struggling or bored and better tailor the experience to their individual needs.

• Media: Journalism is harnessing AI, too, and will continue to benefit from it.
Bloomberg uses Cyborg technology to help make quick sense of complex financial
reports. The Associated Press employs the natural language abilities of Automated
Insights to produce 3,700 earning reports stories per year — nearly four times more
than in the recent past

• Customer Service: Last but hardly least, Google is working on an AI assistant that can
place human-like calls to make appointments at, say, your neighborhood hair salon. In
addition to words, the system understands context and nuance.

1.5 CHARACTERISTICS OF INTELLIGENT AGENTS

Situatedness

The agent receives some form of sensory input from its environment, and it performs
some action that changes its environment in some way.

Examples of environments: the physical world and the Internet.

• Autonomy

The agent can act without direct intervention by humans or other agents and that it has
control over its own actions and internal state.

• Adaptivity

The agent is capable of

(1) reacting flexibly to changes in its environment;
(2) taking goal-directed initiative (i.e., is pro-active), when appropriate; and
(3) Learning from its own experience, its environment, and interactions with others.

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• Sociability

The agent is capable of interacting in a peer-to-peer manner with other agents or humans

1.6 AGENTS AND ITS TYPES

Figure 1.3 Agent types

An agent is anything that can be viewed as perceiving its environment through sensors
and acting upon that environment through actuators.

• Human Sensors:
• Eyes, ears, and other organs for sensors.
• Human Actuators:
• Hands, legs, mouth, and other body parts.
• Robotic Sensors:
• Mic, cameras and infrared range finders for sensors
• Robotic Actuators:
• Motors, Display, speakers etc An agent can be:

Human-Agent: A human agent has eyes, ears, and other organs which work for sensors
and hand, legs, vocal tract work for actuators.

Robotic Agent: A robotic agent can have cameras, infrared range finder, NLP for
sensors and various motors for actuators.

Software Agent: Software agent can have keystrokes, file contents as sensory input
and act on those inputs and display output on the screen.

Hence the world around us is full of agents such as thermostat, cell phone, camera, and
even we are also agents. Before moving forward, we should first know about sensors, effectors,
and actuators.

Sensor: Sensor is a device which detects the change in the environment and sends the
information to other electronic devices. An agent observes its environment through sensors.

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 Actuators: Actuators are the component of machines that converts energy into motion.
The actuators are only responsible for moving and controlling a system. An actuator can be an
electric motor, gears, rails, etc.

Effectors: Effectors are the devices which affect the environment. Effectors can be
legs, wheels, arms, fingers, wings, fins, and display screen.

Figure 1.4 Effectors

1.7 PROPERTIES OF ENVIRONMENT

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

The environment is where agent lives, operate and provide the agent with something to
sense and act upon it.

Fully observable vs Partially Observable:

If an agent sensor can sense or access the complete state of an environment at each
point of time then it is a fully observable environment, else it is partially observable.

A fully observable environment is easy as there is no need to maintain the internal state
to keep track history of the world.

An agent with no sensors in all environments then such an environment is called as

unobservable.

Example: chess – the board is fully observable, as are opponent’s moves. Driving
– what is around the next bend is not observable and hence partially observable.

1. Deterministic vs Stochastic

• If an agent's current state and selected action can completely determine the next state
of the environment, then such environment is called a deterministic environment.

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• A stochastic environment is random in nature and cannot be determined completely by
an agent.

• In a deterministic, fully observable environment, agent does not need to worry about
uncertainty.

2. Episodic vs Sequential

• In an episodic environment, there is a series of one-shot actions, and only the current
percept is required for the action.

• However, in Sequential environment, an agent requires memory of past actions to

determine the next best actions.

3. Single-agent vs Multi-agent

• If only one agent is involved in an environment, and operating by itself then such an
environment is called single agent environment.

• However, if multiple agents are operating in an environment, then such an environment

is called a multi-agent environment.

• The agent design problems in the multi-agent environment are different from single
agent environment.

4. Static vs Dynamic

• If the environment can change itself while an agent is deliberating then such
environment is called a dynamic environment else it is called a static environment.

• Static environments are easy to deal because an agent does not need to continue looking
at the world while deciding for an action.

• However for dynamic environment, agents need to keep looking at the world at each
action.

• Taxi driving is an example of a dynamic environment whereas Crossword puzzles are

an example of a static environment.

5. Discrete vs Continuous

• If in an environment there are a finite number of precepts and actions that can be
performed within it, then such an environment is called a discrete environment else it
is called continuous environment.

• A chess game comes under discrete environment as there is a finite number of moves
that can be performed.

• A self-driving car is an example of a continuous environment.

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6. Known vs Unknown

• Known and unknown are not actually a feature of an environment, but it is an agent's
state of knowledge to perform an action.

• In a known environment, the results for all actions are known to the agent. While in
unknown environment, agent needs to learn how it works in order to perform an action.

• It is quite possible that a known environment to be partially observable and an Unknown

environment to be fully observable.

7. Accessible vs. Inaccessible

• If an agent can obtain complete and accurate information about the state's environment,
then such an environment is called an Accessible environment else it is called
inaccessible.

• An empty room whose state can be defined by its temperature is an example of an

accessible environment.

• Information about an event on earth is an example of Inaccessible environment.

Task environments, which are essentially the "problems" to which rational agents are
the "solutions."

PEAS: Performance Measure, Environment, Actuators, Sensors

Performance

The output which we get from the agent. All the necessary results that an agent gives
after processing comes under its performance.

Environment

All the surrounding things and conditions of an agent fall in this section. It basically
consists of all the things under which the agents work.

Actuators

The devices, hardware or software through which the agent performs any actions or
processes any information to produce a result are the actuators of the agent.

Sensors

The devices through which the agent observes and perceives its environment are the
sensors of the agent.

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 Figure 1.5 Examples of agent types and their PEAS descriptions

Rational Agent - A system is rational if it does the “right thing”. Given what it knows.

Characteristic of Rational Agent

▪ The agent's prior knowledge of the environment.

▪ The performance measure that defines the criterion of success.
▪ The actions that the agent can perform.
▪ The agent's percept sequence to date.

For every possible percept sequence, a rational agent should select an action that is
expected to maximize its performance measure, given the evidence provided by the percept
sequence and whatever built-in knowledge the agent has.

• An omniscient agent knows the actual outcome of its actions and can act accordingly;
but omniscience is impossible in reality.

• Ideal Rational Agent precepts and does things. It has a greater performance measure.
Eg. Crossing road. Here first perception occurs on both sides and then only action. No
perception occurs in Degenerate Agent.
Eg. Clock. It does not view the surroundings. No matter what happens outside. The
clock works based on inbuilt program.

• Ideal Agent describes by ideal mappings. “Specifying which action an agent ought to
take in response to any given percept sequence provides a design for ideal agent”.

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• Eg. SQRT function calculation in calculator.

• Doing actions in order to modify future precepts-sometimes called information

gathering- is an important part of rationality.

• A rational agent should be autonomous-it should learn from its own prior knowledge
(experience).

The Structure of Intelligent Agents

Agent = Architecture + Agent Program

Architecture = the machinery that an agent executes on. (Hardware)
Agent Program = an implementation of an agent function. (Algorithm,
Logic – Software)

1.8 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
• Learning Agent

The Simple reflex agents

• The Simple reflex agents are the simplest agents. These agents take decisions on the
basis of the current percepts and ignore the rest of the percept history (past State).

• These agents only succeed in the fully observable environment.

• The Simple reflex agent does not consider any part of percepts history during their
decision and action process.

• The Simple reflex agent works on Condition-action rule, which means it maps the
current state to action. Such as a Room Cleaner agent, it works only if there is dirt in
the room.

• Problems for the simple reflex agent design approach:

o They have very limited intelligence

o They do not have knowledge of non-perceptual parts of the current state

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 o Mostly too big to generate and to store.

o Not adaptive to changes in the environment.

Condition-Action Rule − It is a rule that maps a state (condition) to an action.

Ex: if car-in-front-is-braking then initiate- braking.

Figure 1.6 A simple reflex agent

Model Based Reflex Agents

• The Model-based agent can work in a partially observable environment, and track the
situation.
• A model-based agent has two important factors:
o Model: It is knowledge about "how things happen in the world," so it is called a
Model-based agent.
o Internal State: It is a representation of the current state based on percept history.
• These agents have the model, "which is knowledge of the world" and based on the
model they perform actions.
• Updating the agent state requires information about:
o How the world evolves
o How the agent's action affects the world.

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 Figure 1.7 A model-based reflex agent

Goal Based Agents

o The knowledge of the current state environment is not always sufficient to decide for
an agent to what to do.

o The agent needs to know its goal which describes desirable situations.

o Goal-based agents expand the capabilities of the model-based agent by having the
"goal" information.

o They choose an action, so that they can achieve the goal.

o These agents may have to consider a long sequence of possible actions before deciding
whether the goal is achieved or not. Such considerations of different scenario are called
searching and planning, which makes an agent proactive.

Figure 1.8 A goal-based agent

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Utility Based Agents

o These agents are similar to the goal-based agent but provide an extra component of
utility measurement (“Level of Happiness”) which makes them different by providing
a measure of success at a given state.

o Utility-based agent act based not only goals but also the best way to achieve the goal.

o The Utility-based agent is useful when there are multiple possible alternatives, and an
agent has to choose in order to perform the best action.

o The utility function maps each state to a real number to check how efficiently each
action achieves the goals.

Figure 1.9 A utility-based agent

Learning Agents

o A learning agent in AI is the type of agent which can learn from its past experiences, or
it has learning capabilities.

o It starts to act with basic knowledge and then able to act and adapt automatically
through learning.

o A learning agent has mainly four conceptual components, which are:

a. Learning element: It is responsible for making improvements by learning from

environment

b. Critic: Learning element takes feedback from critic which describes that how well
the agent is doing with respect to a fixed performance standard.

c. Performance element: It is responsible for selecting external action

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 d. Problem generator: This component is responsible for suggesting actions that will
lead to new and informative experiences.

o Hence, learning agents are able to learn, analyze performance, and look for new ways
to improve the performance.

Figure 1.10 Learning Agents

1.9 PROBLEM SOLVING APPROACH TO TYPICAL AI PROBLEMS

Problem-solving agents

In Artificial Intelligence, Search techniques are universal problem-solving methods.

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

• Some of the most popularly used problem solving with the help of artificial intelligence
are:

1. Chess.
2. Travelling Salesman Problem.
3. Tower of Hanoi Problem.
4. Water-Jug Problem.
5. N-Queen Problem.

Problem Searching

• In general, searching refers to as finding information one needs.

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• Searching is the most commonly used technique of problem solving in artificial
intelligence.

• The searching algorithm helps us to search for solution of particular problem.

Problem: Problems are the issues which comes across any system. A solution is needed to
solve that particular problem.

Steps : Solve Problem Using Artificial Intelligence

• The process of solving a problem consists of five steps. These are:

Figure 1.11 Problem Solving in Artificial Intelligence

Defining The Problem: The definition of the problem must be included precisely. It
should contain the possible initial as well as final situations which should result in acceptable
solution.

1. Analyzing The Problem: Analyzing the problem and its requirement must be done as
few features can have immense impact on the resulting solution.

2. Identification Of Solutions: This phase generates reasonable amount of solutions to

the given problem in a particular range.

3. Choosing a Solution: From all the identified solutions, the best solution is chosen basis
on the results produced by respective solutions.

4. Implementation: After choosing the best solution, its implementation is done.

Measuring problem-solving performance

We can evaluate an algorithm’s performance in four ways:

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 Completeness: Is the algorithm guaranteed to find a solution when there is one?
Optimality: Does the strategy find the optimal solution?
Time complexity: How long does it take to find a solution?
Space complexity: How much memory is needed to perform the search?

Search Algorithm Terminologies

• Search: Searching is a step by step procedure to solve a search-problem in a given

search space. A search problem can have three main factors:

1. Search Space: Search space represents a set of possible solutions, which a system
may have.

2. Start State: It is a state from where agent begins the search.

3. Goal test: It is a function which observe the current state and returns whether the
goal state is achieved or not.

• Search tree: A tree representation of search problem is called Search tree. The root of
the search tree is the root node which is corresponding to the initial state.

• Actions: It gives the description of all the available actions to the agent.

• Transition model: A description of what each action do, can be represented as a

transition model.

• Path Cost: It is a function which assigns a numeric cost to each path.

• Solution: It is an action sequence which leads from the start node to the goal node.
Optimal Solution: If a solution has the lowest cost among all solutions.

Example Problems

A Toy Problem is intended to illustrate or exercise various problem-solving methods.

Areal- world problem is one whose solutions people actually care about.

Toy Problems

Vacuum World

States: The state is determined by both the agent location and the dirt locations. The
agent is in one of the 2 locations, each of which might or might not contain dirt. Thus there are
2*2^2=8 possible world states.

Initial state: Any state can be designated as the initial state.

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 Actions: In this simple environment, each state has just three actions: Left, Right, and
Suck. Larger environments might also include Up and Down.

Transition model: The actions have their expected effects, except that moving Left in
the leftmost squ are, moving Right in the rightmost square, and Sucking in a clean square have
no effect. The complete state space is shown in Figure.

Goal test: This checks whether all the squares are clean.

Path cost: Each step costs 1, so the path cost is the number of steps in the path.

Figure 1.12 Vacuum World State Space Graph

1) 8- Puzzle Problem

Figure 1.13 8- Puzzle Problem

States: A state description specifies the location of each of the eight tiles and the blank
in one of the nine squares.

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 Initial state: Any state can be designated as the initial state. Note that any given goal
can be reached from exactly half of the possible initial states.

The simplest formulation defines the actions as movements of the blank space Left,
Right, Up, or Down. Different subsets of these are possible depending on where the blank is.

Transition model: Given a state and action, this returns the resulting state; for example,
if we apply Left to the start state in Figure 3.4, the resulting state has the 5 and the blank
switched.

Goal test: This checks whether the state matches the goal configuration shown in
Figure. Path cost: Each step costs 1, so the path cost is the number of steps in the path.

Queens Problem

Figure 1.14 Queens Problem

• States: Any arrangement of 0 to 8 queens on the board is a state.

• Initial state: No queens on the board.
• Actions: Add a queen to any empty square.
• Transition model: Returns the board with a queen added to the specified square.
• Goal test: 8 queens are on the board, none attacked.

Consider the given problem. Describe the operator involved in it. Consider the water
jug problem: You are given two jugs, a 4-gallon one and 3-gallon one. Neither has any
measuring marker on it. There is a pump that can be used to fill the jugs with water. How can
you get exactly 2 gallon of water from the 4-gallon jug ?

Explicit Assumptions: A jug can be filled from the pump, water can be poured out of a
jug on to the ground, water can be poured from one jug to another and that there are no other
measuring devices available.

Here the initial state is (0, 0). The goal state is (2, n) for any value of n.
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 State Space Representation: we will represent a state of the problem as a tuple (x, y)
where x represents the amount of water in the 4-gallon jug and y represents the amount of water
in the 3-gallon jug. Note that 0 ≤ x ≤ 4, and 0 ≤ y ≤ 3.

To solve this we have to make some assumptions not mentioned in the problem. They
are:

• We can fill a jug from the pump.

• We can pour water out of a jug to the ground.
• We can pour water from one jug to another.
• There is no measuring device available.

Operators - we must define a set of operators that will take us from one state to another.

Table 1.1

Sr. Current State Next State Descriptions

1 (x,y) if x < 4 (4,y) Fill the 4 gallon jug
2 (x,y) if x < 3 (x,3) Fill the 3 gallon jug
3 (x,y) if x > 0 (x – d, y) Pour some water out of the 4 gallon jug
4 (x,y) if y > 0 (x, y – d) Pour some water out of the 3 gallon jug
5 (x,y) if y > 0 (0, y) Empty the 4 gallon jug
6 (x,y) if y > 0 (x 0) Empty the 3 gallon jug on the ground
(x,y) if x + y > = 4 Pour water from the 3 gallon jug into the
7 (4, y – (4 – x))
and y > 0 4 gallon jug until the 4 gallon jug is full
(x,y) if x + y > = 3 Pour water from the 4 gallon jug into the
8 (x – (3 – x), 3)
and x > 0 3 gallon jug until the 3 gallon jug is full
(x,y) if x + y < = 4 Pour all the water from the 3 gallon jug
9 (x + y, 0)
and y > 0 into the 4 gallon jug
(x,y) if x + y < = 3 Pour all the water from the 4 gallon jug
10 (0, x + y)
and x > 0 into the 3 gallon jug
Pour the 2 gallons from 3 gallon jug into
11 (0, 2) (2, 0)
the 4 gallon jug
Empty the 2 gallons in the 4 gallon jug
12 (2, y) (0, y)
on the ground

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 Figure 1.15 Solution

Table 1.2

Solution

Gallons in 4-gel Gallons in 3-gel

S.No. Rule Applied
jug(x) jug (y)
1. 0 0 Initial state
2.. 4 0 1. Fill 4
3 1 3 6. Poor 4 into 3 to fill
4. 1 0 4. Empty 3
5. 0 1 8. Poor all of 4 into 3
6. 4 1 1. Fill 4
7. 2 3 6. Poor 4 into 3

➢ 4-gallon one and a 3-gallon Jug

➢ No measuring mark on the jug.

➢ There is a pump to fill the jugs with water.

➢ How can you get exactly 2 gallon of water into the 4-gallon jug?

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 UNIT 2
Problem solving Methods – Search Strategies- Uninformed – Informed – Heuristics – Local
Search Algorithms and Optimization Problems - Searching with Partial Observations –
Constraint Satisfaction Problems – Constraint Propagation - Backtracking Search – Game
Playing – Optimal Decisions in Games – Alpha – Beta Pruning – Stochastic Games

2.1 PROBLEM SOLVING BY SEARCH

An important aspect of intelligence is goal-based problem solving.

The solution of many problems can be described by finding a sequence of actions that
lead to a desirable goal. Each action changes the state and the aim is to find the sequence of
actions and states that lead from the initial (start) state to a final (goal) state.

A well-defined problem can be described by:

Initial state

• Operator or successor function - for any state x returns s(x), the set of states
reachable from x with one action

• State space - all states reachable from initial by any sequence of actions

• Path - sequence through state space

• Path cost - function that assigns a cost to a path. Cost of a path is the sum of costs
of individual actions along the path

• Goal test - test to determine if at goal state

What is Search?

Search is the systematic examination of states to find path from the start/root state to
the goal state.

The set of possible states, together with operators defining their connectivity constitute
the search space.

The output of a search algorithm is a solution, that is, a path from the initial state to a
state that satisfies the goal test.

Problem-solving agents

A Problem solving agent is a goal-based agent. It decide what to do by finding sequence

of actions that lead to desirable states. The agent can adopt a goal and aim at satisfying it.

To illustrate the agent’s behavior, let us take an example where our agent is in the city
of Arad, which is in Romania. The agent has to adopt a goal of getting to Bucharest.
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 Goal formulation, based on the current situation and the agent’s performance measure,
is the first step in problem solving.

The agent’s task is to find out which sequence of actions will get to a goal state.

Problem formulation is the process of deciding what actions and states to consider
given a goal.

Example: Route finding problem

Referring to figure
On holiday in Romania : currently in Arad. Flight leaves tomorrow from Bucharest
Formulate goal: be in Bucharest
Formulate problem: states: various cities
actions: drive between cities
Find solution:
sequence of cities, e.g., Arad, Sibiu, Fagaras, Bucharest

Problem formulation

A problem is defined by four items:

initial state e.g., “at Arad"
successor function S(x) = set of action-state pairs e.g., S(Arad) = {[Arad -
>Zerind;Zerind],….} goal test, can be
explicit, e.g., x = at Bucharest" implicit, e.g., NoDirt(x)
path cost (additive)
e.g., sum of distances, number of actions executed, etc. c(x; a; y) is the step cost,
assumed to be >= 0
A solution is a sequence of actions leading from the initial state to a goal state.

Goal formulation and problem formulation

2.2 EXAMPLE PROBLEMS

The problem solving approach has been applied to a vast array of task environments.
Some best known problems are summarized below. They are distinguished as toy or real-world
problems

A toy problem is intended to illustrate various problem solving methods. It can be

easily used by different researchers to compare the performance of algorithms.

A real world problem is one whose solutions people actually care about.

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2.3 TOY PROBLEMS

Vacuum World Example

o States: The agent is in one of two locations, each of which might or might not contain
dirt. Thus there are 2 x 22 = 8 possible world states.

o Initial state: Any state can be designated as initial state.

o Successor function: This generates the legal states that results from trying the three
actions (left, right, suck). The complete state space is shown in figure

o Goal Test: This tests whether all the squares are clean.

o Path test: Each step costs one, so that the path cost is the number of steps in the path.

Vacuum World State Space

Figure 2.1 The state space for the vacuum world.

Arcs denote actions: L = Left, R = Right

The 8-puzzle

An 8-puzzle consists of a 3x3 board with eight numbered tiles and a blank space. A tile
adjacent to the balank space can slide into the space. The object is to reach the goal state, as
shown in Figure 2.4

Example: The 8-puzzle

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 Figure 2.2 A typical instance of 8-puzzle

The problem formulation is as follows:

o States : A state description specifies the location of each of the eight tiles and the blank
in one of the nine squares.
o Initial state : Any state can be designated as the initial state. It can be noted that any
given goal can be reached from exactly half of the possible initial states.
o Successor function : This generates the legal states that result from trying the four
actions(blank moves Left, Right, Up or down).
o Goal Test : This checks whether the state matches the goal configuration shown in
Figure(Other goal configurations are possible)
o Path cost : Each step costs 1,so the path cost is the number of steps in the path.

The 8-puzzle belongs to the family of sliding-block puzzles, which are often used as
test problems for new search algorithms in AI. This general class is known as NP-complete.
The 8-puzzle has 9!/2 = 181,440 reachable states and is easily solved.

The 15 puzzle ( 4 x 4 board ) has around 1.3 trillion states, an the random instances can
be solved optimally in few milli seconds by the best search algorithms.

The 24-puzzle (on a 5 x 5 board) has around 1025 states and random instances are still
quite difficult to solve optimally with current machines and algorithms.

8-Queens problem

The goal of 8-queens problem is to place 8 queens on the chessboard such that no queen
attacks any other.(A queen attacks any piece in the same row, column or diagonal).

Figure 2.3 shows an attempted solution that fails: the queen in the right most column is
attacked by the queen at the top left.

An Incremental formulation involves operators that augments the state description,

starting with an empty state. For 8-queens problem, this means each action adds a queen to the
state. A complete-state formulation starts with all 8 queens on the board and move them
around. In either case the path cost is of no interest because only the final state counts.

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 Figure 2.3 8-queens problem

The first incremental formulation one might try is the following:

o States: Any arrangement of 0 to 8 queens on board is a state.

o Initial state: No queen on the board.
o Successor function: Add a queen to any empty square.
o Goal Test: 8 queens are on the board, none attacked.

In this formulation, we have 64.63…57 = 3 x 1014 possible sequences to investigate.

A better formulation would prohibit placing a queen in any square that is already
attacked.

o States : Arrangements of n queens ( 0 <= n < = 8 ),one per column in the left most
columns, with no queen attacking another are states.

o Successor function : Add a queen to any square in the left most empty column such
that it is not attacked by any other queen.

This formulation reduces the 8-queen state space from 3 x 1014 to just 2057,and solutions
are easy to find.

For the 100 queens the initial formulation has roughly 10400 states whereas the improved
formulation has about 1052 states. This is a huge reduction, but the improved state space is still
too big for the algorithms to handle.

2.4 REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS

ROUTE-FINDING PROBLEM

Route-finding problem is defined in terms of specified locations and transitions along

links between them. Route-finding algorithms are used in a variety of applications, such as
routing in computer networks, military operations planning, and airline travel planning
systems.

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2.5 AIRLINE TRAVEL PROBLEM

The airline travel problem is specifies as follows:

o States: Each is represented by a location (e.g., an airport) and the current time.

o Initial state: This is specified by the problem.

o Successor function: This returns the states resulting from taking any scheduled flight
(further specified by seat class and location),leaving later than the current time plus the
within-airport transit time, from the current airport to another.

o Goal Test: Are we at the destination by some prespecified time?

o Path cost: This depends upon the monetary cost, waiting time, flight time, customs and
immigration procedures, seat quality, time of date, type of air plane, frequent-flyer
mileage awards, and so on.

2.6 TOURING PROBLEMS

Touring problems are closely related to route-finding problems, but with an important
difference. Consider for example, the problem, “Visit every city at least once” as shown in
Romania map.

As with route-finding the actions correspond to trips between adjacent cities. The state
space, however, is quite different.

The initial state would be “In Bucharest; visited{Bucharest}”.

A typical intermediate state would be “In Vaslui;visited {Bucharest, Urziceni,Vaslui}”.

The goal test would check whether the agent is in Bucharest and all 20 cities have been
visited.

2.7 THE TRAVELLING SALESPERSON PROBLEM(TSP)

Is a touring problem in which each city must be visited exactly once. The aim is to find
the shortest tour. The problem is known to be NP-hard. Enormous efforts have been expended
to improve the capabilities of TSP algorithms. These algorithms are also used in tasks such as
planning movements of automatic circuit-board drills and of stocking machines on shop
floors.

VLSI layout

A VLSI layout problem requires positioning millions of components and connections

on a chip to minimize area, minimize circuit delays, minimize stray capacitances, and maximize
manufacturing yield. The layout problem is split into two parts: cell layout and channel
routing.

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ROBOT navigation

ROBOT navigation is a generalization of the route-finding problem. Rather than a

discrete set of routes, a robot can move in a continuous space with an infinite set of possible
actions and states. For a circular Robot moving on a flat surface, the space is essentially two-
dimensional. When the robot has arms and legs or wheels that also must be controlled, the
search space becomes multi-dimensional. Advanced techniques are required to make the search
space finite.

2.8 AUTOMATIC ASSEMBLY SEQUENCING

The example includes assembly of intricate objects such as electric motors. The aim in
assembly problems is to find the order in which to assemble the parts of some objects. If the
wrong order is choosen, there will be no way to add some part later without undoing some
work already done. Another important assembly problem is protein design, in which the goal
is to find a sequence of Amino acids that will be fold into a three-dimensional protein with the
right properties to cure some disease.

2.9 INTERNET SEARCHING

In recent years there has been increased demand for software robots that perform
Internet searching, looking for answers to questions, for related information, or for shopping
deals. The searching techniques consider internet as a graph of nodes(pages) connected by
links.

Different Search Algorithm

Figure 2.4 Different Search Algorithms

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2.10 UNINFORMED SEARCH STRATGES

Uninformed Search Strategies have no additional information about states beyond

that provided in the problem definition.

Strategies that know whether one non goal state is “more promising” than another are
called

Informed search or heuristic search strategies.

There are five uninformed search strategies as given below.

o Breadth-first search
o Uniform-cost search
o Depth-first search
o Depth-limited search
o Iterative deepening search

Breadth-first search

o Breadth-first search is a simple strategy in which the root node is expanded first, then
all successors of the root node are expanded next, then their successors, and so on. In
general, all the nodes are expanded at a given depth in the search tree before any nodes
at the next level are expanded.

o Breath-first-search is implemented by calling TREE-SEARCH with an empty fringe

that is a first-in-first-out (FIFO) queue, assuring that the nodes that are visited first will
be expanded first. In otherwards, calling TREE-SEARCH (problem, FIFO-QUEUE())
results in breadth-first-search. The FIFO queue puts all newly generated successors at
the end of the queue, which means that Shallow nodes are expanded before deeper
nodes.

Figure 2.5 Breadth-first search on a simple binary tree. At each stage, the node to be
expanded next is indicated by a marker.

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Properties of breadth-first-search

Figure 2.6 Breadth-first-search properties

Time complexity for BFS

Assume every state has b successors. The root of the search tree generates b nodes at
the first level, each of which generates b more nodes, for a total of b2 at the second level. Each
of these generates b more nodes, yielding b3 nodes at the third level, and so on. Now suppose,
that the solution is at depth d. In the worst case, we would expand all but the last node at level
d, generating bd+1 - b nodes at level d+1.

Then the total number of nodes generated is b + b2 + b3 + …+ bd + ( bd+1 + b) = O(bd+1).

Every node that is generated must remain in memory, because it is either part of the
fringe or is an ancestor of a fringe node. The space compleity is, therefore, the same as the time
complexity

2.11 UNIFORM-COST SEARCH

Instead of expanding the shallowest node, uniform-cost search expands the node n
with the lowest path cost. Uniform-cost search does not care about the number of steps a path
has, but only about their total cost.

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2.12 DEPTH-FIRST-SEARCH

Depth-first-search always expands the deepest node in the current fringe of the search
tree. The progress of the search is illustrated in Figure 1.31. The search proceeds immediately
to the deepest level of the search tree, where the nodes have no successors. As those nodes are
expanded, they are dropped from the fringe, so then the search “backs up” to the next shallowest
node that still has unexplored successors.

Figure 2.7 Depth-first-search on a binary tree. Nodes that have been expanded and have
node scendants in the fringe can be removed from the memory; these are shown in
black. Nodes at depth 3 are assumed to have no successors and M is the only goal node.

This strategy can be implemented by TREE-SEARCH with a last-in-first-out (LIFO)

queue, also known as a stack.

Depth-first-search has very modest memory requirements. It needs to store only a single
path from the root to a leaf node, along with the remaining unexpanded sibling nodes for each
node on the path. Once the node has been expanded, it can be removed from the memory, as
soon as its descendants have been fully explored (Refer Figure 2.7).

For a state space with a branching factor b and maximum depth m, depth-first-search
requires storage of only bm + 1 nodes.

Using the same assumptions as Figure, and assuming that nodes at the same depth as
the goal node have no successors, we find the depth-first-search would require 118 kilobytes
instead of 10 petabytes, a factor of 10 billion times less space.
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Drawback of Depth-first-search

The drawback of depth-first-search is that it can make a wrong choice and get stuck
going down very long(or even infinite) path when a different choice would lead to solution
near the root of the search tree. For example, depth-first-search will explore the entire left
subtree even if node C is a goal node.

2.12 BACKTRACKING SEARCH

A variant of depth-first search called backtracking search uses less memory and only
one successor is generated at a time rather than all successors.; Only O(m) memory is needed
rather than O(bm)

DEPTH-LIMITED-SEARCH

Figure 2.8 Depth-limited-search

The problem of unbounded trees can be alleviated by supplying depth-first-search with

a pre- determined depth limit l. That is, nodes at depth l are treated as if they have no successors.
This approach is called depth-limited-search. The depth limit soves the infinite path problem.

Depth limited search will be nonoptimal if we choose l > d. Its time complexity is O(bl)
and its space complete is O(bl). Depth-first-search can be viewed as a special case of depth-
limited search with l = oo Sometimes, depth limits can be based on knowledge of the problem.
For, example, on the map of Romania there are 20 cities. Therefore, we know that if there is a
solution, it must be of length 19 at the longest, So l = 10 is a possible choice. However, it can
be shown that any city can be reached from any other city in at most 9 steps. This number
known as the diameter of the state space, gives us a better depth limit.

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 Depth-limited-search can be implemented as a simple modification to the general tree-
search algorithm or to the recursive depth-first-search algorithm. The pseudocode for recursive
depth- limited-search is shown in Figure.

It can be noted that the above algorithm can terminate with two kinds of failure : the
standard failure value indicates no solution; the cutoffvalue indicates no solution within the
depth limit. Depth-limited search = depth-first search with depth limit l,returns cut off if any
path is cut off by depth limit

function Depth-Limited-Search( problem, limit) returns a solution/fail/cutoff return

Recursive-DLS(Make-Node(Initial-State[problem]), problem, limit) function Recursive-
DLS(node, problem, limit) returns solution/fail/cutoff cutoff-occurred? false
if Goal-Test(problem,State[node]) then return Solution(node)
else if Depth[node] = limit then return cutoff
else for each successor in Expand(node, problem) do result
Recursive-DLS(successor, problem, limit) if result = cutoff then cutoff_occurred?true
else if result not = failure then return result
ifcutoff_occurred? then return cutoff else return failure
Figure 2.9 Recursive implementation of Depth-limited-search

2.13 ITERATIVE DEEPENING DEPTH-FIRST SEARCH

Iterative deepening search (or iterative-deepening-depth-first-search) is a general

strategy often used in combination with depth-first-search, that finds the better depth limit. It
does this by gradually increasing the limit – first 0,then 1,then 2, and so on – until a goal is
found. This will occur when the depth limit reaches d, the depth of the shallowest goal node.
The algorithm is shown in Figure.

Iterative deepening combines the benefits of depth-first and breadth-first-search Like

depth-first-search, its memory requirements are modest; O(bd) to be precise.

Like Breadth-first-search, it is complete when the branching factor is finite and optimal
when the path cost is a non decreasing function of the depth of the node.

Figure shows the four iterations of ITERATIVE-DEEPENING_SEARCH on a binary

search tree, where the solution is found on the fourth iteration.

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 Figure 2.10 The iterative deepening search algorithm, which repeatedly applies
depth-limited- search with increasing limits. It terminates when a solution is found or
if the depth limited search returns failure, meaning that no solution exists.

Figure 2.11 Four iterations of iterative deepening search on a binary tree

Iterative search is not as wasteful as it might seem

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 Figure 2.12 Iterative search is not as wasteful as it might seem
Properties of iterative deepening search

Figure 2.13 Properties of iterative deepening search

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Bidirectional Search

The idea behind bidirectional search is to run two simultaneous searches – one forward
from the initial state and the other backward from the goal, stopping when the two searches
meet in the middle

The motivation is that bd/2 + bd/2 much less than, or in the figure, the area of the two
small circles is less than the area of one big circle centered on the start and reaching to the goal.

Figure 2.14 A schematic view of a bidirectional search that is about to succeed, when
a Branch from the Start node meets a Branch from the goal node.

• Before moving into bidirectional search let’s first understand a few terms.

• Forward Search: Looking in-front of the end from start.

• Backward Search: Looking from end to the start back-wards.

• So Bidirectional Search as the name suggests is a combination of forwarding and

backward search. Basically, if the average branching factor going out of node / fan-out,
if fan-out is less, prefer forward search. Else if the average branching factor is going
into a node/fan in is less (i.e. fan-out is more), prefer backward search.

• We must traverse the tree from the start node and the goal node and wherever they meet
the path from the start node to the goal through the intersection is the optimal solution.
The BS Algorithm is applicable when generating predecessors is easy in both forward
and backward directions and there exist only 1 or fewer goal states.

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 Figure 2.15 Comparing Uninformed Search Strategies

Figure 2.16 Evaluation of search strategies, b is the branching factor; d is the depth of
the shallowest solution; m is the maximum depth of the search tree; l is the depth
limit. Superscript caveats are as follows: a complete if b is finite; b complete if step
costs >= E for positive E; c optimal if step costs are all identical; d if both directions
use breadth-first search.

2.14 SEARCHING WITH PARTIAL INFORMATION

o Different types of incompleteness lead to three distinct problem types:

o Sensorless problems (conformant): If the agent has no sensors at all
o Contingency problem: if the environment if partially observable or if action are
uncertain (adversarial)
o Exploration problems: When the states and actions of the environment are unknown.

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o No sensor
o Initial State(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
o After action [Right] the state (2,4,6,8)
o After action [Suck] the state (4, 8)
o After action [Left] the state (3,7)
o After action [Suck] the state (8)
o Answer : [Right, Suck, Left, Suck] coerce the world into state 7 without any sensor
o Belief State: Such state that agent belief to be there

Partial knowledge of states and actions:

– sensorless or conformant problem

– Agent may have no idea where it is; solution (if any) is a sequence.
– contingency problem
– Percepts provide new information about current state; solution is a tree or policy;
often interleave search and execution.
– If uncertainty is caused by actions of another agent: adversarial problem
– exploration problem
– When states and actions of the environment are unknown.

Figure 2.17 states and actions of the

environment are unknown

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 Figure 2.18 states and actions

Contingency, start in {1,3}.

Murphy’s law, Suck can dirty a clean carpet. Local sensing: dirt, location only.
– Percept = [L,Dirty] ={1,3}
– [Suck] = {5,7}
– [Right] ={6,8}
– [Suck] in {6}={8} (Success)
– BUT [Suck] in {8} = failure Solution??
– Belief-state: no fixed action sequence guarantees solution
Relax requirement:
– [Suck, Right, if [R,dirty] then Suck]
– Select actions based on contingencies arising during execution.
Time and space complexity are always considered with respect to some measure of the
problem difficulty. In theoretical computer science, the typical measure is the size of the state
space.
In AI, where the graph is represented implicitly by the initial state and successor
function, the complexity is expressed in terms of three quantities:
b, the branching factor or maximum number of successors of any node;
d, the depth of the shallowest goal node; and

41
 m, the maximum length of any path in the state space.
Search-cost - typically depends upon the time complexity but can also include the term
for memory usage.
Total–cost – It combines the search-cost and the path cost of the solution found.
2.15 INFORMED SEARCH AND EXPLORATION
Informed (Heuristic) Search Strategies
Informed search strategy is one that uses problem-specific knowledge beyond the
definition of the problem itself. It can find solutions more efficiently than uninformed strategy.
Best-first search
Best-first search is an instance of general TREE-SEARCH or GRAPH-SEARCH
algorithm in which a node is selected for expansion based on an evaluation function f(n). The
node with lowest evaluation is selected for expansion, because the evaluation measures the
distance to the goal.
This can be implemented using a priority-queue, a data structure that will maintain the
fringe in ascending order of f-values.
2.16 HEURISTIC FUNCTIONS
A heuristic function or simply a heuristic is a function that ranks alternatives in
various search algorithms at each branching step basing on an available information in order
to make a decision which branch is to be followed during a search.
The key component of Best-first search algorithm is a heuristic function, denoted by
h(n): h(n) = estimated cost of the cheapest path from node n to a goal node.
For example, in Romania, one might estimate the cost of the cheapest path from Arad
to Bucharest via a straight-line distance from Arad to Bucharest (Figure 2.19).
Heuristic function are the most common form in which additional knowledge is
imparted to the search algorithm.
Greedy Best-first search
Greedy best-first search tries to expand the node that is closest to the goal, on the
grounds that this is likely to a solution quickly.
It evaluates the nodes by using the heuristic function f(n) = h(n).
Taking the example of Route-finding problems in Romania, the goal is to reach
Bucharest starting from the city Arad. We need to know the straight-line distances to Bucharest
from various cities as shown in Figure. For example, the initial state is In(Arad),and the straight
line distance heuristic hSLD (In(Arad)) is found to be 366.
Using the straight-line distance heuristic hSLD, the goal state can be reached faster.

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Figure 2.19 Values of hSLD - straight line distances to Bucharest

Figure 2.20 progress of greedy best-first search

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 Figure shows the progress of greedy best-first search using hSLD to find a path from
Arad to Bucharest. The first node to be expanded from Arad will be Sibiu, because it is closer
to Bucharest than either Zerind or Timisoara. The next node to be expanded will be Fagaras,
because it is closest. Fagaras in turn generates Bucharest, which is the goal.

Properties of greedy search

o Complete: No–can get stuck in loops, e.g., Iasi !Neamt !Iasi !Neamt !
Complete in finite space with repeated-state checking
o Time: O(bm), but a good heuristic can give dramatic improvement
o Space: O(bm) - keeps all nodes in memory
o Optimal: No

Greedy best-first search is not optimal, and it is incomplete.

The worst-case time and space complexity is O(bm),where m is the maximum depth of
the search space.

A* SEARCH

A* Search is the most widely used form of best-first search. The evaluation function
f(n) is obtained by combining

(1) g(n) = the cost to reach the node, and

(2) h(n) = the cost to get from the node to the goal :
f(n) = g(n) + h(n).

A* Search is both optimal and complete. A* is optimal if h(n) is an admissible heuristic.

The obvious example of admissible heuristic is the straight-line distance hSLD. It cannot be an
overestimate.

A* Search is optimal if h(n) is an admissible heuristic – that is, provided that h(n) never
overestimates the cost to reach the goal.

An obvious example of an admissible heuristic is the straight-line distance hSLD that

we used in getting to Bucharest. The progress of an A* tree search for Bucharest is shown in
Figure

The values of ‘g ‘ are computed from the step costs shown in the Romania map(figure).
Also the values of hSLD are given in Figure

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 Figure 2.21 A* Search

Figure 2.22 Example A* Search

2.17 LOCAL SEARCH ALGORITHMS AND OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS

o In many optimization problems, the path to the goal is irrelevant; the goal state itself is
the solution

o For example, in the 8-queens problem, what matters is the final configuration of queens,
not the order in which they are added.

o In such cases, we can use local search algorithms. They operate using a single current
state (rather than multiple paths) and generally move only to neighbors of that state.

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o The important applications of these class of problems are (a) integrated-circuit design,
(b) Factory-floor layout, (c) job-shop scheduling, (d) automatic programming, (e)
telecommunications network optimization, (f) Vehicle routing, and (g) portfolio
management.
Key advantages of Local Search Algorithms
(1) They use very little memory – usually a constant amount; and
(2) they can often find reasonable solutions in large or infinite(continuous) state spaces for
which systematic algorithms are unsuitable.
2.18 OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS
In addition to finding goals, local search algorithms are useful for solving pure
optimization problems, in which the aim is to find the best state according to an objective
function.
State Space Landscape
To understand local search, it is better explained using state space landscape as shown
in Figure.
A landscape has both “location” (defined by the state) and “elevation” (defined by the
value of the heuristic cost function or objective function).
If elevation corresponds to cost, then the aim is to find the lowest valley – a global
minimum; if elevation corresponds to an objective function, then the aim is to find the highest
peak – a global maximum.
Local search algorithms explore this landscape. A complete local search algorithm
always finds a goal if one exists; an optimal algorithm always finds a global
minimum/maximum.

Figure 2.23 A one dimensional state space landscape in which elevation

corresponds to the objective function. The aim is to find the global maximum.
Hill climbing search modifies the current state to try to improve it, as shown
by the arrow. The various topographic features are defined in the text

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 Hill-climbing search

The hill-climbing search algorithm as shown in figure, is simply a loop that continually
moves in the direction of increasing value – that is, uphill. It terminates when it reaches a
“peak” where no neighbor has a higher value.

function HILL-CLIMBING( problem) return a state that is a local maximum

input: 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
Figure 2.24 The hill-climbing search algorithm (steepest ascent version), which is
the most basic local search technique. At each step the current node is replaced
by the best neighbor; the neighbor with the highest VALUE. If the heuristic cost
estimate h is used, we could find the neighbor with the lowest h.

Hill-climbing is sometimes called greedy local search because it grabs a good neighbor
state without thinking ahead about where to go next. Greedy algorithms often perform quite
well. Problems with hill-climbing

Hill-climbing often gets stuck for the following reasons :

• Local maxima: a local maximum is a peak that is higher than each of its neighboring
states, but lower than the global maximum. Hill-climbing algorithms that reach the
vicinity of a local maximum will be drawn upwards towards the peak, but will then be
stuck with nowhere else to go

• Ridges: A ridge is shown in Figure 2.10. Ridges results in a sequence of local maxima
that is very difficult for greedy algorithms to navigate.

• Plateaux: A plateau is an area of the state space landscape where the evaluation
function is flat. It can be a flat local maximum, from which no uphill exit exists, or a
shoulder, from which it is possible to make progress.

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 Figure 2.25 Illustration of why ridges cause difficulties for hill-climbing. The grid
of states(dark circles) is superimposed on a ridge rising from left to right, creating
a sequence of local maxima that are not directly connected to each other. From
each local maximum, all the available options point downhill.

Hill-climbing variations

➢ Stochastic hill-climbing
o Random selection among the uphill moves.
o The selection probability can vary with the steepness of the uphill move.
➢ First-choice hill-climbing
o cfr. stochastic hill climbing by generating successors randomly until a better
one is found.
➢ Random-restart hill-climbing
o Tries to avoid getting stuck in local maxima.

Simulated annealing search

A hill-climbing algorithm that never makes “downhill” moves towards states with
lower value (or higher cost) is guaranteed to be incomplete, because it can stuck on a local
maximum. In contrast, a purely random walk –that is, moving to a successor choosen uniformly
at random from the set of successors – is complete, but extremely inefficient.

Simulated annealing is an algorithm that combines hill-climbing with a random walk

in someway that yields both efficiency and completeness.

Figure shows simulated annealing algorithm. It is quite similar to hill climbing. Instead
of picking the best move, however, it picks the random move. If the move improves the
situation, it is always accepted. Otherwise, the algorithm accepts the move with some
probability less than 1. The probability decreases exponentially with the “badness” of the move
– the amount E by which the evaluation is worsened.

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Simulated annealing was first used extensively to solve VLSI layout problems in the early
1980s. It has been applied widely to factory scheduling and other large-scale optimization
tasks.

Figure 2.26 The simulated annealing search algorithm, a version of stochastic

hill climbing where some downhill moves are allowed.

Genetic algorithms

A Genetic algorithm (or GA) is a variant of stochastic beam search in which successor
states are generated by combining two parent states, rather than by modifying a single state

Like beam search, Gas begin with a set of k randomly generated states, called the
population. Each state, or individual, is represented as a string over a finite alphabet – most
commonly, a string of 0s and 1s. For example, an 8 8-quuens state must specify the positions
of 8 queens, each in a column of 8 squares, and so requires 8 x log2 8 = 24 bits.

Figure 2.27 Genetic algorithm

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 Figure shows a population of four 8-digit strings representing 8-queen states. The
production of the next generation of states is shown in Figure

In (b) each state is rated by the evaluation function or the fitness function.

In (c),a random choice of two pairs is selected for reproduction, in accordance with the
probabilities in (b).

Figure describes the algorithm that implements all these steps.

function GENETIC_ALGORITHM( population, FITNESS-FN) return an individual

input: population, a set of individuals
FITNESS-FN, a function which determines the quality of the individual
repeat
new_population←empty set
loop for ifrom 1 to SIZE(population) do
x ←RANDOM_SELECTION(population, FITNESS_FN)
y ←RANDOM_SELECTION(population,
FITNESS_FN)
child ←REPRODUCE(x,y)
if (small random probability) then child
MUTATE(child ) add child to new_population
population ←new_population
until some individual is fit enough or enough time has elapsed
return the best individual
Figure 2.28 A genetic algorithm.

2.29 CONSTRAINT SATISFACTION PROBLEMS(CSP)

A Constraint Satisfaction Problem(or CSP) is defined by a set of

variables,X1,X2,….Xn, and a set of constraints C1,C2,…,Cm. Each variable Xi has a
nonempty domain D,of possible values.

Each constraint Ci involves some subset of variables and specifies the allowable
combinations of values for that subset.

A State of the problem is defined by an assignment of values to some or all of the

variables,{Xi = vi,Xj = vj,…}. An assignment that does not violate any constraints is called a
consistent or legal assignment. A complete assignment is one in which every variable is
mentioned, and a solution to a CSP is a complete assignment that satisfies all the constraints.

Some CSPs also require a solution that maximizes an objective function.

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Example for Constraint Satisfaction Problem

Figure shows the map of Australia showing each of its states and territories. We are
given the task of coloring each region either red, green, or blue in such a way that the
neighboring regions have the same color. To formulate this as CSP, we define the variable to
be the regions

:WA,NT,Q,NSW,V,SA, and T. The domain of each variable is the set

{red,green,blue}.The constraints require neighboring regions to have distinct colors; for
example, the allowable combinations for WA and NT are the pairs

{(red,green),(red,blue),(green,red),(green,blue),(blue,red),(blue,green)}.

The constraint can also be represented more succinctly as the inequality WA not = NT,
provided the constraint satisfaction algorithm has some way to evaluate such expressions.)
There are many possible solutions such as

{ WA = red, NT = green, Q = red, NSW = green, V = red,SA = blue,T = red}.

It is helpful to visualize a CSP as a constraint graph, as shown in Figure 2.29. The nodes
of the graph corresponds to variables of the problem and the arcs correspond to constraints.

Figure 2.29 Principle states and territories of Australia. Coloring this map can be
viewed as a constraint satisfaction problem. The goal is to assign colors to each region
so that no neighboring regions have the same color.

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 Figure 2.30 Mapping Problem

CSP can be viewed as a standard search problem as follows:

➢ Initial state: the empty assignment {},in which all variables are unassigned.
➢ Successor function: a value can be assigned to any unassigned variable, provided that
it does not conflict with previously assigned variables.
➢ Goal test: the current assignment is complete.
➢ Path cost: a constant cost(E.g.,1) for every step.

Every solution must be a complete assignment and therefore appears at depth n if there
are n variables.

Depth first search algorithms are popular for CSPs

Varieties of CSPs
(i) Discrete variables Finite domains

The simplest kind of CSP involves variables that are discrete and have finite domains.
Map coloring problems are of this kind. The 8-queens problem can also be viewed as finite-
domain

CSP, where the variables Q1,Q2,…..Q8 are the positions each queen in columns 1,….8
and each variable has the domain {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}. If the maximum domain size of any

52
variable in a CSP is d, then the number of possible complete assignments is O(dn) – that is,
exponential in the number of variables. Finite domain CSPs include Boolean CSPs, whose
variables can be either true or false. Infinite domains

Discrete variables can also have infinite domains – for example, the set of integers or
the set of strings. With infinite domains, it is no longer possible to describe constraints by
enumerating all allowed combination of values. Instead a constraint language of algebric
inequalities such as Startjob1 + 5 <= Startjob3.

(ii) CSPs with continuous domains

CSPs with continuous domains are very common in real world. For example in
operation research field, the scheduling of experiments on the Hubble Telescope requires very
precise timing of observations; the start and finish of each observation and manoeuvre are
continuous-valued variables that must obey a variety of astronomical, precedence and power
constraints. The best known category of continuous-domain CSPs is that of linear
programming problems, where the constraints must be linear inequalities forming a convex
region. Linear programming problems can be solved in time polynomial in the number of
variables.

Varieties of constraints

(i) unary constraints involve a single variable.

Example : SA # green
(ii) Binary constraints involve paris of variables.
Example : SA # WA
(iii) Higher order constraints involve 3 or more variables. Example :cryptarithmetic puzzles.

S
Figure 2.31 cryptarithmetic puzzles.

53
 Figure 2.32 Cryptarithmetic puzzles-Solution

Figure 2.33 Numerical Solution

Backtracking Search for CSPs

The term backtracking search is used for depth-first search that chooses values for
one variable at a time and backtracks when a variable has no legal values left to assign. The
algorithm is shown in figure

54
Figure 2.34 A simple backtracking algorithm for constraint satisfaction problem. The
algorithm is modeled on the recursive depth-first search

Figure 2.34 Part of the search tree generated by simple backtracking for the map-
coloring problem

Figure 2.35 Part of search tree generated by simple backtracking for the map
coloring problem.

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Forward checking

One way to make better use of constraints during search is called forward checking.
Whenever a variable X is assigned, the forward checking process looks at each unassigned
variable Y that is connected to X by a constraint and deletes from Y ’s domain any value that
is inconsistent with the value chosen for X. Figure 5.6 shows the progress of a map-coloring
search with forward checking.

Figure 2.36 The progress of a map-coloring search with forward checking. WA = red
is assigned first; then forward checking deletes red from the domains of the
neighboring variables NT and SA. After Q = green, green is deleted from the domain
of NT, SA, and NSW. After V = blue, blue, is deleted from the domains of NSW and
SA, leaving SA with no legal values.

Constraint propagation

Although forward checking detects many inconsistencies, it does not detect all of them.

Constraint propagation is the general term for propagating the implications of a

constraint on one variable onto other variables.

Arc Consistency

Figure 2.37 Arc Consistency

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 Figure 2.38 Arc Consistency –CSP

k-Consistency

Local Search for CSPs

The Structure of Problems Problem Structure

Independent Subproblems

Figure 2.39 Independent Subproblems

57
 Tree-Structured CSPs

Figure 2.40 Tree-Structured CSPs

2.30 ADVERSARIAL SEARCH

Competitive environments, in which the agent’s goals are in conflict, give rise to
adversarial search problems – often known as games.

Games

Mathematical Game Theory, a branch of economics, views any multiagent

environment as a game provided that the impact of each agent on the other is “significant”,
regardless of whether the agents are cooperative or competitive. In, AI, “games” are
deterministic, turn-taking, two-player, zero-sum games of perfect information. This means
deterministic, fully observable environments in which there are two agents whose actions must
alternate and in which the utility values at the end of the game are always equal and opposite.
For example, if one player wins the game of chess(+1),the other player necessarily loses(-1). It
is this opposition between the agents’ utility functions that makes the situation adversarial.

Formal Definition of Game

We will consider games with two players, whom we will call MAX and MIN. MAX
moves first, and then they take turns moving until the game is over. At the end of the game,
points are awarded to the winning player and penalties are given to the loser. A game can be
formally defined as a search problem with the following components:

o The initial state, which includes the board position and identifies the player to move.

o A successor function, which returns a list of (move, state) pairs, each indicating a legal
move and the resulting state.

58
o A terminal test, which describes when the game is over. States where the game has
ended are called terminal states.

o A utility function (also called an objective function or payoff function), which give a
numeric value for the terminal states. In chess, the outcome is a win, loss, or draw, with
values+1,-1, or 0. he payoffs in backgammon range from +192 to -192.

Game Tree

The initial state and legal moves for each side define the game tree for the game.
Figure 2.18 shows the part of the game tree for tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses). From the
initial state, MAX has nine possible moves. Play alternates between MAX’s placing an X and
MIN’s placing a 0 until we reach leaf nodes corresponding to the terminal states such that one
player has three in a row or all the squares are filled. He number on each leaf node indicates
the utility value of the terminal state from the point of view of MAX; high values are assumed
to be good for MAX and bad for MIN. It is the MAX’s job to use the search tree (particularly
the utility of terminal states) to determine the best move.

Figure 2.41 A partial search tree. The top node is the initial state, and MAX
move first, placing an X in an empty square.

Optimal Decisions in Games

In normal search problem, the optimal solution would be a sequence of move leading
to a goal state – a terminal state that is a win. In a game, on the other hand, MIN has something

59
to say about it, MAX therefore must find a contingent strategy, which specifies MAX’s move
in the initial state, then MAX’s moves in the states resulting from every possible response by
MIN, then MAX’s moves in the states resulting from every possible response by MIN those
moves, and so on. An optimal strategy leads to outcomes at least as good as any other strategy
when one is playing an infallible opponent.

Figure 2.42 Optimal Decisions in Games

Figure 2.43 MAX-VALUE and MIN-VALUE

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 Figure 2.44 An algorithm for calculating minimax decisions. It returns the action
corresponding to the best possible move, that is, the move that leads to the outcome
with the best utility, under the assumption that the opponent plays to minimize
utility. The functions MAX-VALUE and MIN-VALUE go through the whole game
tree, all the way to the leaves, to determine the backed-up value of a state.

The minimax Algorithm

The minimax algorithm computes the minimax decision from the current state. It uses
a simple recursive computation of the minimax values of each successor state, directly
implementing the defining equations. The recursion proceeds all the way down to the leaves of
the tree, and then the minimax values are backed up through the tree as the recursion unwinds.
For example in Figure 2.19,the algorithm first recourses down to the three bottom left nodes,
and uses the utility function on them to discover that their values are 3, 12, and 8 respectively.
Then it takes the minimum of these values, 3, and returns it as the backed-up value of node B.
A similar process gives the backed up values of 2 for C and 2 for D. Finally, we take the
maximum of 3, 2, and 2 to get the backed-up value of 3 at the root node. The minimax algorithm
performs a complete depth-first exploration of the game tree. If the maximum depth of the tree
is m, and there are b legal moves at each point, then the time complexity of the minimax
algorithm is O(bm). The space complexity is O(bm) for an algorithm that generates successors
at once.

Alpha-Beta Pruning

The problem with minimax search is that the number of game states it has to examine
is exponential in the number of moves. Unfortunately, we can’t eliminate the exponent, but

61
we can effectively cut it in half. By performing pruning, we can eliminate large part of the tree
from consideration. We can apply the technique known as alpha beta pruning, when applied
to a minimax tree, it returns the same move as minimax would, but prunes away branches that
cannot possibly influence the final decision.

Alpha Beta pruning gets its name from the following two parameters that describe
bounds on the backed-up values that appear anywhere along the path:

o α : the value of the best (i.e., highest-value) choice we have found so far at any
choice point along the path of MAX.

o β: the value of best (i.e., lowest-value) choice we have found so far at any choice
point along the path of MIN.

Alpha Beta search updates the values of α and β as it goes along and prunes the
remaining branches at anode(i.e., terminates the recursive call) as soon as the value of the
current node is known to be worse than the current α and β value for MAX and MIN,
respectively. The complete algorithm is given in Figure. The effectiveness of alpha-beta
pruning is highly dependent on the order in which the successors are examined. It might be
worthwhile to try to examine first the successors that are likely to be the best. In such case, it
turns out that alpha-beta needs to examine only O(bd/2) nodes to pick the best move, instead of
O(bd) for minimax. This means that the effective branching factor becomes sqrt(b) instead of
b – for chess,6 instead of 35. Put an other way alpha-beta cab look ahead roughly twice as far
as minimax in the same amount of time.

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 Figure 2.45 The alpha beta search algorithm. These routines are the same as the
minimax routines in figure 2.20,except for the two lines in each of MIN-VALUE
and MAX-VALUE that maintain α and β

Key points in Alpha-beta Pruning

• Alpha: Alpha is the best choice or the highest value that we have found at any instance
along the path of Maximizer. The initial value for alpha is – ∞.

• Beta: Beta is the best choice or the lowest value that we have found at any instance
along the path of Minimizer. The initial value for alpha is + ∞.

• The condition for Alpha-beta Pruning is that α >= β.

• Each node has to keep track of its alpha and beta values. Alpha can be updated only
when it’s MAX’s turn and, similarly, beta can be updated only when it’s MIN’s chance.

• MAX will update only alpha values and MIN player will update only beta values.

• The node values will be passed to upper nodes instead of values of alpha and beta during
go into reverse of tree.

• Alpha and Beta values only be passed to child nodes.

Working of Alpha-beta Pruning

1. We will first start with the initial move. We will initially define the alpha and beta
values as the worst case i.e. α = -∞ and β= +∞. We will prune the node only when alpha
becomes greater than or equal to beta.

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 Figure 2.46 Step 1 Alpha-beta Pruning

2. Since the initial value of alpha is less than beta so we didn’t prune it. Now it’s turn for
MAX. So, at node D, value of alpha will be calculated. The value of alpha at node D
will be max (2, 3). So, value of alpha at node D will be 3.

3. Now the next move will be on node B and its turn for MIN now. So, at node B, the
value of alpha beta will be min (3, ∞). So, at node B values will be alpha= – ∞ and beta
will be 3.

Figure 2.47 Step 2 Alpha-beta Pruning

In the next step, algorithms traverse the next successor of Node B which is node E, and
the values of α= -∞, and β= 3 will also be passed.

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4. Now it’s turn for MAX. So, at node E we will look for MAX. The current value of
alpha at E is – ∞ and it will be compared with 5. So, MAX (- ∞, 5) will be 5. So, at
node E, alpha = 5, Beta = 5. Now as we can see that alpha is greater than beta which is
satisfying the pruning condition so we can prune the right successor of node E and
algorithm will not be traversed and the value at node E will be 5.

Figure 2.48 Step 3 Alpha-beta Pruning

6. In the next step the algorithm again comes to node A from node B. At node A alpha
will be changed to maximum value as MAX (- ∞, 3). So now the value of alpha and
beta at node A will be (3, + ∞) respectively and will be transferred to node C. These
same values will be transferred to node F.

7. At node F the value of alpha will be compared to the left branch which is 0. So, MAX
(0, 3) will be 3 and then compared with the right child which is 1, and MAX (3,1) = 3
still α remains 3, but the node value of F will become 1.

Figure 2.49 Step 4 Alpha-beta Pruning

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8. Now node F will return the node value 1 to C and will compare to beta value at C. Now
its turn for MIN. So, MIN (+ ∞, 1) will be 1. Now at node C, α= 3, and β= 1 and alpha
is greater than beta which again satisfies the pruning condition. So, the next successor
of node C i.e. G will be pruned and the algorithm didn’t compute the entire subtree G.

Figure 2.50 Step 5 Alpha-beta Pruning

Now, C will return the node value to A and the best value of A will be MAX (1, 3) will
be 3.

Figure 2.51 Step 6 Alpha-beta Pruning

The above represented tree is the final tree which is showing the nodes which are
computed and the nodes which are not computed. So, for this example the optimal value of the
maximizer will be 3.

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 UNIT 3

KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION
First Order Predicate Logic – Prolog Programming – Unification – Forward Chaining-
Backward Chaining – Resolution – Knowledge Representation – Ontological Engineering-
Categories and Objects – Events – Mental Events and Mental Objects – Reasoning Systems for
Categories – Reasoning with Default Information.

First order Logic

Propositional logic is a declarative language because its semantics is based on a truth relation
between sentences and possible worlds. It also has sufficient expressive power to deal with
partial information, using disjunction and negation.

First-Order Logic is a logic which is sufficiently expressive to represent a good deal of our
common sense knowledge.

• It is also either includes or forms the foundation of many other representation

languages.

• It is also called as First-Order Predicate calculus.

• It is abbreviated as FOL or FOPC

FOL adopts the foundation of propositional logic with all its advantages to build a more
expressive logic on that foundation, borrowing representational ideas from natural language
while avoiding its drawbacks.

The Syntax of natural language contains elements such as,

1. Nouns and noun phrases that refer to objects (Squares, pits, rumpuses)
2. Verbs and verb phrases that refer to among objects ( is breezy, is adjacent to)

Some of these relations are functions-relations in which there is only one “Value” for a
given “input”. Whereas propositional logic assumes the world contains facts, first-order logic
(like natural language) assumes the world contains Objects: people, houses, numbers, colors,
baseball games, wars, …

Relations: red, round, prime, brother of, bigger than, part of, comes between,…

Functions: father of, best friend, one more than, plus, …

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3.1 SPECIFY THE SYNTAX OF FIRST-ORDER LOGIC IN BNF FORM

The domain of a model is DOMAIN the set of objects or domain elements it contains.
The domain is required to be nonempty—every possible world must contain at least one object.
Figure 8.2 shows a model with five objects: Richard the Lionheart, King of England from 1189
to 1199; his younger brother, the evil King John, who ruled from 1199 to 1215; the left legs of
Richard and John; and a crown. The objects in the model may be related in various ways. In
the figure, Richard and John are brothers. Formally speaking, a relation TUPLE is just the set
of tuples of objects that are related. (A tuple is a collection of objects arranged in a fixed order
and is written with angle brackets surrounding the objects.) Thus, the brotherhood relation in
this model is the set

Figure 3.1 First-Order Logic in BNF Form

The crown is on King John’s head, so the “on head” relation contains just one tuple, _
the crown, King John_. The “brother” and “on head” relations are binary relations — that is,
they relate pairs of objects. Certain kinds of relationships are best considered as functions, in
that a given object must be related to exactly one object in this way. For example, each person
has one left leg, so the model has a unary “left leg” function that includes the following
mappings:

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The five objects are,

Richard the Lionheart

His younger brother
The evil King John
The left legs of Richard and John
A crown

• The objects in the model may be related in various ways, In the figure Richard and John
are brothers.

• Formally speaking, a relation is just the set of tuples of objects that are related.

• A tuple is a collection of Objects arranged in a fixed order and is written with angle
brackets surrounding the objects.

• Thus, the brotherhood relation in this model is the set {(Richard the Lionheart, King
John),(King John, Richard the Lionheart)}

• The crown is on King John’s head, so the “on head” relation contains just one tuple,
(the crown, King John).

o The relation can be binary relation relating pairs of objects (Ex:- “Brother”) or unary
relation representing a common object (Ex:- “Person” representing both Richard
and John)

Certain kinds of relationships are best considered as functions that relates an object to
exactly one object.

For Example:- each person has one left leg, so the model has a unary “left leg” function
that includes the following mappings (Richard the Lionheart) ----> Richard’s left leg
(King John) ----> John’s left leg

Symbols and Interpretations:

The basic syntactic elements of first-order logic are the symbols that stand for objects,
relations and functions

Kinds of Symbols

The symbols come in three kinds namely,

Constant Symbols standing for Objects (Ex:- Richard)

Predicate Symbols standing for Relations (Ex:- King)

Function Symbols stands for functions (Ex:-Left Leg)

70
 o Symbols will begin with uppercase letters
o The choice of names is entirely up to the user
o Each predicate and function symbol comes with an arity
o Arity fixes the number of arguments.

The semantics must relate sentences to models in order to determine truth.

To do this, an interpretation is needed specifying exactly which objects, relations and

functions are referred to by the constant, predicate and function symbols.

One possible interpretation called as the intended interpretation- is as follows;

Richard refers to Richard the Lion heart and John refers to the evil King John.

Brother refers to the brotherhood relation, that is the set of tuples of objects given in
equation {(Richard the Lionheart, King John),(King John, Richard the
Lionheart)}

On Head refers to the “on head” relation that holds between the crown and King John;
Person, King and Crown refer to the set of objects that are persons, kings and crowns.

Left leg refers to the “left leg” function, that is, the mapping given in {(Richard the
Lion heart, King John), (King John, Richard the Lionheart)}

A complete description from the formal grammar is as follows

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 Term A term is a logical expression that refers TERM to an object. Constant symbols
are therefore terms, but it is not always convenient to have a distinct symbol to name every
object. For example, in English we might use the expression “King John’s left leg” rather than
giving a name to his leg. This is what function symbols are for: instead of using a constant
symbol, we use Left Leg (John). The formal semantics of terms is straightforward. Consider a
term f(t1, . . . , tn). The function symbol f refers to some function in the model. Atomic
sentences Atomic sentence (or atom for short) is formed from a predicate symbol optionally
followed by a parenthesized list of terms, such as Brother (Richard, John). Atomic sentences
can have complex terms as arguments. Thus, Married (Father (Richard),Mother (John)) states
that Richard the Lionheart’s father is married to King John’s mother.

Complex Sentences

We can use logical connectives to construct more complex sentences, with the same
syntax and semantics as in propositional calculus

￢Brother (LeftLeg (Richard), John)

Brother (Richard, John) ∧ Brother (John, Richard)
King(Richard ) ∨ King(John)
￢King(Richard) ⇒ King(John).

Quantifiers

Quantifiers are used to express properties of entire collections of objects, instead of

enumerating the objects by name. First-order logic contains two standard quantifiers, called
universal and existential

Universal quantification (∀)

“All kings are persons,” is written in first-order logic as

∀x King(x) ⇒ Person(x)

∀ is usually pronounced “For all. . .” Thus, the sentence says, “For all x, if x is a king,
then x is a person.” The symbol x is called a variable. A term with no variables is called a
ground term.

Consider the model shown in Figure 8.2 and the intended interpretation that goes with
it. We can extend the interpretation in five ways:

x → Richard the Lionheart,

x → King John, x → Richard’s left leg,
x → John’s left leg,
x → the crown.

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 The universally quantified sentence ∀ x King(x) ⇒ Person(x) is true in the original
model if the sentence King(x) ⇒ Person(x) is true under each of the five extended
interpretations. That is, the universally quantified sentence is equivalent to asserting the
following five sentences:

Richard the Lionheart is a king ⇒ Richard the Lionheart is a person.

King John is a king ⇒ King John is a person.
Richard’s left leg is a king ⇒ Richard’s left leg is a person.
John’s left leg is a king ⇒ John’s left leg is a person.
The crown is a king ⇒ the crown is a person.

Existential quantification (∃)

Universal quantification makes statements about every object. Similarly, we can make
a statement about some object in the universe without naming it, by using an existential
quantifier. To say, for example, that King John has a crown on his head, we write

∃x Crown(x) ∧OnHead(x, John)

∃x is pronounced “There exists an x such that . . .” or “For some x . . .” More precisely,

∃x P is true in a given model if P is true in at least one extended interpretation that assigns x to
a domain element. That is, at least one of the following is true:

Richard the Lionheart is a crown ∧ Richard the Lionheart is on John’s head;

King John is a crown ∧ King John is on John’s head;
Richard’s left leg is a crown ∧ Richard’s left leg is on John’s head;
John’s left leg is a crown ∧ John’s left leg is on John’s head;
The crown is a crown ∧ the crown is on John’s head.

The fifth assertion is true in the model, so the original existentially quantified sentence
is true in the model. Just as ⇒ appears to be the natural connective to use with ∀, ∧ is the natural
connective to use with ∃.

Using ∧ as the main connective with ∀ led to an overly strong statement in the example
in the previous section; using ⇒ with ∃ usually leads to a very weak statement, indeed. Consider
the following sentence:

∃x Crown(x) ⇒OnHead(x, John)

Applying the semantics, we see that the sentence says that at least one of the following
assertions is true:

Richard the Lionheart is a crown ⇒ Richard the Lionheart is on John’s head;

King John is a crown ⇒ King John is on John’s head;
Richard’s left leg is a crown ⇒ Richard’s left leg is on John’s head;

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and so on. Now an implication is true if both premise and conclusion are true, or if its premise
is false. So if Richard the Lionheart is not a crown, then the first assertion is true and the
existential is satisfied. So, an existentially quantified implication sentence is true whenever any
object fails to satisfy the premise

Nested quantifiers

We will often want to express more complex sentences using multiple quantifiers. The
simplest case is where the quantifiers are of the same type. For example, “Brothers are siblings”
can be written as

∀x∀ y Brother (x, y) ⇒ Sibling(x, y)

Consecutive quantifiers of the same type can be written as one quantifier with several
variables. For example, to say that siblinghood is a symmetric relationship, we can write

∀x, y Sibling(x, y) ⇔ Sibling(y, x). In other cases we will have mixtures. “Everybody
loves somebody” means that for every person, there is someone that person loves:

∀x∃ y Loves(x, y).

On the other hand, to say “There is someone who is loved by everyone,” we write

∃y∀ x Loves(x, y).

The order of quantification is therefore very important. It becomes clearer if we insert

parentheses.

∀x (∃ y Loves(x, y)) says that everyone has a particular property, namely, the property
that they love someone. On the other hand,

∃y (∀ x Loves(x, y)) says that someone in the world has a particular property, namely
the property of being loved by everybody.

Connections between ∀ and ∃

The two quantifiers are actually intimately connected with each other, through negation.
Asserting that everyone dislikes parsnips is the same as asserting there does not exist someone
who likes them, and vice versa:

∀x￢Likes(x, Parsnips ) is equivalent to ￢

∀x￢Likes(x, Parsnips ) is equivalent to ￢∃ x Likes(x, Parsnips). We can go one

step further: “Everyone likes ice cream” means that there is no one who does not like
ice cream:

∀x Likes(x, IceCream) is equivalent to ￢∃ x ￢Likes(x, IceCream).

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Equality

We can use the equality symbol to signify that two terms refer to the same object. For
example,

Father (John)=Henry

says that the object referred to by Father (John) and the object referred to by Henry are the
same.

The equality symbol can be used to state facts about a given function, as we just did for
the Father symbol. It can also be used with negation to insist that two terms are not the same
object. To say that Richard has at least two brothers, we would write

∃x, y Brother (x,Richard ) ∧ Brother (y,Richard ) ∧￢(x=y).

Compare different knowledge representation languages

Figure 3.2 Formal languages and their ontological and epistemological commitments

What are the syntactic elements of First Order Logic?

The basic syntactic elements of first-order logic are the symbols that stand for objects,
relations, and functions. The symbols, come in three kinds:

a) constant symbols, which stand for objects;

b) predicate symbols, which stand for relations;
c) and function symbols, which stand for functions.

We adopt the convention that these symbols will begin with uppercase letters. Example:

Constant symbols :
Richard and John;
predicate symbols :
Brother, On Head, Person, King, and Crown; function symbol : LeftLeg.

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Quantifiers

Quantifiers are used to express properties of entire collections of objects, instead of

enumerating the objects by name if a logic that allows object is found.

It has two type,

The following are the types of standard quantifiers,
Universal
Existential

Universal quantification

Explain Universal Quantifiers with an example.

Rules such as "All kings are persons,'' is written in first-order logic as

x King(x) => Person(x)

where is pronounced as “ For all..”

Thus, the sentence says, "For all x, if x is a king, then is a person." The symbol x is called a
variable(lower case letters)

The sentence x P, where P is a logical expression says that P is true for every object x.

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The universally quantified sentence is equivalent to asserting the following five sentences

Richard the Lionheart ------ Richard the Lionheart is a person

King John is a King ------ King John is a Person
Richard’s left leg is King -------- Richard’s left leg is a person
John’s left leg is a King -------- John’s left leg is a person
The crown is a King -------- The crown is a Person

Existential quantification

Universal quantification makes statements about every object.

It is possible to make a statement about some object in the universe without naming
it,by using an existential quantifier.

Example

“King John has a crown on his head”

x Crown(x) ^ OnHead(x,John)
x is pronounced “There exists an x such that..” or “ For some x ..”

Nested Quantifiers

More complex sentences are expressed using multiple quantifiers.

The following are the some cases of multiple quantifiers,
The simplest case where the quantifiers are of the same type.

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For Example:- “Brothers are Siblings” can be written as

Consecutive quantifiers of the same type can be written as one quantifier with

several variables. For Example:- to say that siblinghood is a symmetric relationship as

3.2 THE WUMPUS WORLD

The wumpus world is a cave consisting of rooms connected by passageways. Lurking

somewhere in the cave is the terrible wumpus, a beast that eats anyone who enters its room.
The wumpus can be shot by an agent, but the agent has only one arrow. Some rooms contain
bottomless pits that will trap anyone who wanders into these rooms (except for the wumpus,
which is too big to fall in). The only mitigating feature of this bleak environment is the
possibility of finding a heap of gold. Although the wumpus world is rather tame by modern
computer game standards, it illustrates some important points about intelligence. A sample
wumpus world is shown in Figure

Figure 3.3 wumpus world

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 To specify the agent's task, we specify its percepts, actions, and goals. In the wumpus
world, these are as follows:

• In the square containing the wumpus and in the directly (not diagonally)
adjacent squares the agent will perceive a stench.
• In the squares directly adjacent to a pit, the agent will perceive a breeze.
• In the square where the gold is, the agent will perceive a glitter.
• When an agent walks into a wall, it will perceive a bump.
• When the wumpus is killed, it gives out a woeful scream that can be perceived
anywhere in the cave.
• The percepts will be given to the agent in the form of a list of five symbols; for
example, if there is a stench, a breeze, and a glitter but no bump and no scream,
the agent will receive the percept [Stench, Breeze, Glitter, None, None]. The
agent cannot perceive its own location.
• Just as in the vacuum world, there are actions to go forward, turn right by 90°,
and turn left by 90°. In addition, the action Grab can be used to pick up an object
that is in the same square as the agent. The action Shoot can be used to fire an
arrow in a straight line in the direction the agent is facing. The arrow continues
until it either hits and kills the wumpus or hits the wall. The agent only has one
arrow, so only the first Shoot action has any effect.

The wumpus agent receives a percept vector with five elements. The corresponding
first order sentence stored in the knowledge base must include both the percept and the time at
which it occurred; otherwise, the agent will get confused about when it saw what. We use
integers for time steps. A typical percept sentence would be

Percept ([Stench, Breeze, Glitter, None, None], 5).

Here, Percept is a binary predicate, and Stench and so on are constants placed in a list.
The actions in the wumpus world can be represented by logical terms:

Turn(Right ), Turn(Left ), Forward, Shoot, Grab, Climb.

To determine which is best, the agent program executes the query

ASKVARS(∃ a BestAction(a, 5)),

which returns a binding list such as {a/Grab}. The agent program can then return Grab
as the action to take. The raw percept data implies certain facts about the current state.

For example:

∀t,s,g,m,c Percept ([s,Breeze,g,m,c],t) ⇒ Breeze(t),

∀t,s,b,m,c Percept ([s,b,Glitter,m,c],t) ⇒ Glitter (t)

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 These rules exhibit a trivial form of the reasoning process called perception. Simple
“reflex” behavior can also be implemented by quantified implication sentences.

For example, we have ∀ t Glitter (t) ⇒BestAction(Grab, t).

Given the percept and rules from the preceding paragraphs, this would yield the desired
conclusion

BestAction(Grab, 5)—that is, Grab is the right thing to do. For example, if the agent is
at a square and perceives a breeze, then that square is breezy:

∀s, t At(Agent, s, t) ∧ Breeze(t) ⇒ Breezy(s).

It is useful to know that a square is breezy because we know that the pits cannot move
about. Notice that Breezy has no time argument. Having discovered which places are breezy
(or smelly) and, very important, not breezy (or not smelly), the agent can deduce where the pits
are (and where the wumpus is). first-order logic just needs one axiom:

∀s Breezy(s) ⇔∃r Adjacent (r, s) ∧ Pit(r).

3.3 SUBSTITUTION

Let us begin with universal quantifiers

∀x King(x) ∧ Greedy(x) ⇒ Evil(x).

Then it seems quite permissible to infer any of the following sentences:

King(John) ∧ Greedy(John) ⇒ Evil(John)

King(Richard ) ∧ Greedy(Richard) ⇒ Evil(Richard)
King(Father (John)) ∧ Greedy(Father (John)) ⇒ Evil(Father (John)).

The rule of Universal Instantiation (UI for short) says that we can infer any sentence
obtained by substituting a ground term (a term without variables) for the variable.

Let SUBST(θ,α) denote the result of applying the substitution θ to the sentence α. Then
the rule is written

∀v α SUBST({v/g}, α) for any variable v and ground term g.

For example, the three sentences given earlier are obtained with the substitutions
{x/John}, {x/Richard }, and {x/Father (John)}.

In the rule for Existential Instantiation, the variable is replaced by a single new constant
symbol. The formal statement is as follows: for any sentence α, variable v, and constant symbol
k that does not appear elsewhere in the knowledge base,

∃v α SUBST({v/k}, α) For example, from the sentence

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 ∃x Crown(x) ∧OnHead(x, John) we can infer the sentence
Crown(C1) ∧OnHead(C1, John)

EXAMPLE

Suppose our knowledge base contains just the sentences

∀x King(x) ∧ Greedy(x) ⇒ Evil(x)
King(John)
Greedy(John) Brother (Richard, John)

Then we apply UI to the first sentence using all possible ground-term substitutions from
the vocabulary of the knowledge base—in this case,

{x/John} and {x/Richard }. We obtain

King(John) ∧ Greedy(John) ⇒ Evil(John)
King(Richard ) ∧ Greedy(Richard) ⇒ Evil(Richard),

and we discard the universally quantified sentence. Now, the knowledge base is essentially
propositional if we view the ground atomic sentences

King(John),
Greedy(John), and so on—as proposition symbols.

3.4 UNIFICATION

Lifted inference rules require finding substitutions that make different logical
expressions look identical. This process is called unification and is a key component of all first-
order inference algorithms. The UNIFY algorithm takes two sentences and returns a unifier for
them if one exists: UNIFY(p, q)=θ where SUBST(θ, p)= SUBST(θ, q).

Suppose we have a query AskVars(Knows(John, x)): whom does John know? Answers
can be found by finding all sentences in the knowledge base that unify with Knows(John, x).

Here are the results of unification with four different sentences that might be in the
knowledge base: UNIFY(Knows(John, x), Knows(John, Jane)) = {x/Jane}

UNIFY(Knows(John, x), Knows(y, Bill )) = {x/Bill, y/John}

UNIFY(Knows(John, x), Knows(y, Mother (y))) = {y/John, x/Mother (John)}

UNIFY(Knows(John, x), Knows(x, Elizabeth)) = fail.

The last unification fails because x cannot take on the values John and Elizabeth at the
same time. Now, remember that Knows(x, Elizabeth) means “Everyone knows Elizabeth,” so
we should be able to infer that John knows Elizabeth. The problem arises only because the two
sentences happen to use the same variable name, x. The problem can be avoided by

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standardizing apart one of the two sentences being unified, which means renaming its variables
to avoid name clashes. For example, we can rename x in

Knows(x, Elizabeth) to x17 (a new variable name) without changing its meaning.

Now the unification will work

UNIFY(Knows(John, x), Knows(x17, Elizabeth)) = {x/Elizabeth, x17/John} UNIFY

should return a substitution that makes the two arguments look the same. But there could be
more than one such unifier.

For example,

UNIFY(Knows(John, x), Knows(y, z)) could return

{y/John, x/z} or {y/John, x/John, z/John}.

The first unifier gives Knows(John, z) as the result of unification, whereas the second
gives Knows(John, John). The second result could be obtained from the first by an additional
substitution {z/John}; we say that the first unifier is more general than the second, because it
places fewer restrictions on the values of the variables. An algorithm for computing most
general unifiers is shown in Figure.

The process is simple: recursively explore the two expressions simultaneously “side by
side,” building up a unifier along the way, but failing if two corresponding points in the
structures do not match. There is one expensive step: when matching a variable against a
complex term, one must check whether the variable itself occurs inside the term; if it does, the
match fails because no consistent unifier can be constructed.

Figure 3.4 Recursively explore

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 In artificial intelligence, forward and backward chaining is one of the important topics,
but before understanding forward and backward chaining lets first understand that from where
these two terms came.

Inference engine

The inference engine is the component of the intelligent system in artificial intelligence,
which applies logical rules to the knowledge base to infer new information from known facts.
The first inference engine was part of the expert system. Inference engine commonly proceeds
in two modes, which are:

a. Forward chaining
b. Backward chaining

Horn Clause and Definite clause

Horn clause and definite clause are the forms of sentences, which enables knowledge
base to use a more restricted and efficient inference algorithm. Logical inference algorithms
use forward and backward chaining approaches, which require KB in the form of the first-order
definite clause.nt

Definite clause: A clause which is a disjunction of literals with exactly one positive
literal is known as a definite clause or strict horn clause.

Horn clause: A clause which is a disjunction of literals with at most one positive
literal is known as horn clause. Hence all the definite clauses are horn clauses.

Example: (¬ p V ¬ q V k). It has only one positive literal k.

It is equivalent to p ∧ q → k.

A. Forward Chaining

Forward chaining is also known as a forward deduction or forward reasoning method

when using an inference engine. Forward chaining is a form of reasoning which start with
atomic sentences in the knowledge base and applies inference rules (Modus Ponens) in the
forward direction to extract more data until a goal is reached.

The Forward-chaining algorithm starts from known facts, triggers all rules whose
premises are satisfied, and add their conclusion to the known facts. This process repeats until
the problem is solved.

Properties of Forward-Chaining

o It is a down-up approach, as it moves from bottom to top.

o It is a process of making a conclusion based on known facts or data, by starting

from the initial state and reaches the goal state.

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 o Forward-chaining approach is also called as data-driven as we reach to the goal
using available data.

o Forward -chaining approach is commonly used in the expert system, such as CLIPS,
business, and production rule systems.

Consider the following famous example which we will use in both approaches:

Example

"As per the law, it is a crime for an American to sell weapons to hostile nations. Country
A, an enemy of America, has some missiles, and all the missiles were sold to it by Robert, who
is an American citizen."

Prove that "Robert is criminal."

To solve the above problem, first, we will convert all the above facts into first-order
definite clauses, and then we will use a forward-chaining algorithm to reach the goal.

Facts Conversion into FOL

o It is a crime for an American to sell weapons to hostile nations. (Let's say p, q, and r
are variables)
American (p) ∧ weapon(q) ∧ sells (p, q, r) ∧ hostile(r) → Criminal(p) …(1)

o Country A has some missiles. ∃p Owns(A, p) ∧ Missile(p). It can be written in two

definite clauses by using Existential Instantiation, introducing new Constant T1.
Owns(A, T1) …(2)
Missile(T1) …(3)

o All of the missiles were sold to country A by Robert.

∀p Missiles(p) ∧ Owns (A, p) → Sells (Robert, p, A) …(4)

o Missiles are weapons.

Missile(p) → Weapons (p) …(5)

o Enemy of America is known as hostile.

Enemy(p, America) →Hostile(p) …(6)

o Country A is an enemy of America.

Enemy (A, America) …(7)

o Robert is American
American(Robert). …(8)

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Forward chaining proof

Step-1

In the first step we will start with the known facts and will choose the sentences which
do not have implications, such as: American (Robert), Enemy(A, America), Owns(A, T1), and
Missile(T1). All these facts will be represented as below.

Figure 3.5

Step-2

At the second step, we will see those facts which infer from available facts and with
satisfied premises.

Rule-(1) does not satisfy premises, so it will not be added in the first iteration.

Rule-(2) and (3) are already added.

Rule-(4) satisfy with the substitution {p/T1}, so Sells (Robert, T1, A) is added, which infers
from the conjunction of Rule (2) and (3).

Rule-(6) is satisfied with the substitution(p/A), so Hostile(A) is added and which infers from
Rule-(7).

Figure 3.6

Step-3

At step-3, as we can check Rule-(1) is satisfied with the substitution {p/Robert, q/T1,
r/A}, so we can add Criminal (Robert) which infers all the available facts. And hence we
reached our goal statement.

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 Figure 3.7

Hence it is proved that Robert is Criminal using forward chaining approach.

B. Backward Chaining

Backward-chaining is also known as a backward deduction or backward reasoning method

when using an inference engine. A backward chaining algorithm is a form of reasoning, which
starts with the goal and works backward, chaining through rules to find known facts that
support the goal.

Properties of backward chaining

o It is known as a top-down approach.

o Backward-chaining is based on modus ponens inference rule.
o In backward chaining, the goal is broken into sub-goal or sub-goals to prove the facts
true.
o It is called a goal-driven approach, as a list of goals decides which rules are selected
and used.
o Backward -chaining algorithm is used in game theory, automated theorem proving
tools, inference engines, proof assistants, and various AI applications.
o The backward-chaining method mostly used a depth-first search strategy for proof.

Example

In backward-chaining, we will use the same above example, and will rewrite all the rules.

o American (p) ∧ weapon(q) ∧ sells (p, q, r) ∧ hostile(r) → Criminal(p) …(1)

Owns(A, T1) …(2)

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 o Missile(T1)

o ?p Missiles(p) ∧ Owns (A, p) → Sells (Robert, p, A) …(4)

o Missile(p) → Weapons (p) …(5)

o Enemy(p, America) →Hostile(p) …(6)

o Enemy (A, America) …(7)

o American (Robert). …(8)

Backward-Chaining proof

In Backward chaining, we will start with our goal predicate, which is Criminal (Robert),
and then infer further rules.

Step-1

At the first step, we will take the goal fact. And from the goal fact, we will infer other
facts, and at last, we will prove those facts true. So our goal fact is "Robert is Criminal," so
following is the predicate of it.

Step-2

At the second step, we will infer other facts form goal fact which satisfies the rules. So
as we can see in Rule-1, the goal predicate Criminal (Robert) is present with substitution
{Robert/P}. So we will add all the conjunctive facts below the first level and will replace p
with Robert.

Here we can see American (Robert) is a fact, so it is proved here.

Figure 3.8

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Step-3

t At step-3, we will extract further fact Missile(q) which infer from Weapon(q), as it
satisfies Rule-(5). Weapon (q) is also true with the substitution of a constant T1 at q.

Figure 3.9

Step-4

At step-4, we can infer facts Missile(T1) and Owns(A, T1) form Sells(Robert, T1, r)
which satisfies the Rule- 4, with the substitution of A in place of r. So these two statements are
proved here.

Figure 3.10

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Step-5

At step-5, we can infer the fact Enemy(A, America) from Hostile(A) which satisfies
Rule- 6. And hence all the statements are proved true using backward chaining.

Figure 3.11

Suppose you have a production system with the FOUR rules: R1: IF A AND C then F
R2: IF A AND E, THEN G R3: IF B, THEN E R4: R3: IF G, THEN D and you have four initial
facts: A, B, C, D. PROVE A&B TRUE THEN D IS TRUE. Explain what is meant by “forward
chaining”, and show explicitly how it can be used in this case to determine new facts.

3.5 RESOLUTION IN FOL

Resolution

Resolution is a theorem proving technique that proceeds by building refutation proofs,

i.e., proofs by contradictions. It was invented by a Mathematician John Alan Robinson in the
year 1965.

Resolution is used, if there are various statements are given, and we need to prove a
conclusion of those statements. Unification is a key concept in proofs by resolutions.
Resolution is a single inference rule which can efficiently operate on the conjunctive normal
form or clausal form.

Clause: Disjunction of literals (an atomic sentence) is called a clause. It is also known
as a unit clause.

Conjunctive Normal Form: A sentence represented as a conjunction of clauses is said

to be conjunctive normal form or CNF.

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Steps for Resolution

1. Conversion of facts into first-order logic.

2. Convert FOL statements into CNF
3. Negate the statement which needs to prove (proof by contradiction)
4. Draw resolution graph (unification).

To better understand all the above steps, we will take an example in which we will
apply resolution.

Example
a. John likes all kind of food.
b. Apple and vegetable are food
c. Anything anyone eats and not killed is food.
d. Anil eats peanuts and still alive
e. Harry eats everything that Anil eats. Prove by resolution that:
f. John likes peanuts.

Step-1: Conversion of Facts into FOL

In the first step we will convert all the given statements into its first order logic.

o Eliminate all implication (→) and rewrite

1. ∀x ¬ food(x) V likes(John, x)
2. food(Apple) Λ food(vegetables)
3. ∀x ∀y ¬ [eats(x, y) Λ ¬ killed(x)] V food(y)
4. eats (Anil, Peanuts) Λ alive(Anil)
5. ∀x ¬ eats(Anil, x) V eats(Harry, x)
6. ∀x¬ [¬ killed(x) ] V alive(x)
7. ∀x ¬ alive(x) V ¬ killed(x)
8. likes(John, Peanuts).

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