ACTING UNDER UNCERTINITY

Agents may need to handle uncertainty, whether due to partial observability, non
determinism, or a combination of the two. An agent may never know for certain what state
it’s in or where it will end up after a sequence of actions.
The right thing to do—the rational decision—therefore depends on both the relative
importance of various goals and the likelihood that, and degree to which, they will be
achieved.
Main reasons for failures
• Laziness: It is too much work to list the complete set of antecedents or consequents
needed to ensure an exceptionless rule and too hard to use such rules.
• Theoretical ignorance: Medical science has no complete theory for the domain.
• Practical ignorance: Even if we know all the rules, we might be uncertain
Probability provides a way of summarizing the uncertainty that comes from our laziness
and ignorance,

Utility theory says that every state has a degree of usefulness, or utility, to an agent and
that the agent will prefer states with higher utility.
Preferences, as expressed by utilities, are combined with probabilities in the general
theory of rational decisions called decision theory:
Decision theory = probability theory + utility theory .

The fundamental idea of decision theory is that an agent is rational if and only if it
chooses the action that yields the highest expected utility, averaged over all the possible
outcomes of the action. This is called the principle of maximum expected utility (MEU).
The connection between toothaches and cavities is just not a logical consequence in
either direction. This is typical of the medical domain, as well as most other judgmental
domains: law, business, design, automobile repair, gardening, dating, and so on. The
agent’s knowledge can at best provide only a degree of belief in the relevant sentences.

Our main tool for dealing with degrees of belief is probability theory.

A logical agent believes each sentence to be true or false or has no opinion, whereas a
probabilistic agent may have a numerical degree of belief between 0 (for sentences that
are certainly false) and 1 (certainly true).
The agent forms a plan, A90, that involves leaving home 90 minutes before the flight departs
and driving at a reasonable speed.

The agent forms a plan, A90, that involves leaving home 90 minutes before the flight departs
and driving at a reasonable speed.

Even though the airport is only about 5 miles away, a logical taxi agent will not be able to
conclude with certainty that “Plan A90 will get us to the airport in time.”

Instead, it reaches the weaker conclusion “Plan A90 will get us to the airport in time, as long as
the car doesn’t break down or run out of gas, and I don’t get into an accident, and there are
no accidents on the bridge, and the plane doesn’t leave early, and no meteorite hits the car,
and ... .”
None of these conditions can be deduced for sure, so the plan’s success cannot be inferred.

The plans that could be executed, A90 is expected to maximize the agent’s performance
measure (where the expectation is relative to the agent’s knowledge about the
environment).

The performance measure includes getting to the airport in time for the flight, avoiding a
long, unproductive wait at the airport, and avoiding speeding tickets along the way.

The agent’s knowledge cannot guarantee any of these outcomes for A90, but it can provide
some degree of belief that they will be achieved.
Other plans, such as A180, might increase the agent’s belief that it will get to the airport on
time, but also increase the likelihood of a long wait.

The right thing to do—the rational decision—therefore depends on both the relative
importance of various goals and the likelihood that, and degree to which, they will be
achieved.

Suppose it gives us a 97% chance of catching our flight. Does this mean it is a rational choice?
Not necessarily: there might be other plans, such as A180, with higher probabilities.

If it is vital not to miss the flight, then it is worth risking the longer wait at the airport.
What about A1440, a plan that involves leaving home 24 hours in advance? In most
circumstances, this is not a good choice, because although it almost guarantees getting there
on time, it involves an intolerable wait.

To make such choices, an agent must first have preferences between the different possible
outcomes of the various plans.
An outcome is a completely specified state.
We use utility theory to represent and reason with preferences.

Utility theory says that every state has a degree of usefulness, or utility, to an agent and that
the agent will prefer states with higher utility. The utility of a state is relative to an agent.

Preferences, as expressed by utilities, are combined with probabilities in the general

The fundamental idea of decision theory is that an agent is rational if and only if it chooses
the action that yields the highest expected utility, averaged over all the possible outcomes of
the action. This is called the principle of maximum expected utility (MEU).

The decision-theoretic agent’s belief state represents not just the possibilities for world
states but also their probabilities.

Given the belief state, the agent can make probabilistic predictions of action outcomes and
hence select the action with highest expected utility.