Artificial Intelligence in Action

Wednesday, September 6
Two Open Lectures
NC 1511

7:00 am – 8:15 am
LINGUISTIC GEOMETRY
FOR DEFENSE SYSTEMS
8:30 am – 9:45 am
LINGUISTIC GEOMETRY:
A HISTORICAL PROSPECTIVE

Both lectures will be given by Professor Boris Stilman

www.stilman-strategies.com
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Assignment 2. Due 09/13/10.

1. Analyze problems Tower of Hanoi and Missionaries and

Cannibals with respect to the seven problem characteristics
discussed in class.

2. Construct heuristic functions and apply

a) simple hill climbing
b) steepest-ascent hill climbing
to 3 problems
Tower of Hanoi,
Monkey and Bananas,
Missionaries and Cannibals.
Show search trees and explain how your functions help to
reduce search. Do they really work? If your functions do not
work properly explain what happened.
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Problem Characteristics

1. Is the problem decomposable?

2. Can solution steps be ignored or undone?

3. Is the problem's universe predictable?

4. Is good solution absolute or relative?

5. Is the desired solution a state of the world or a path to a

state?

6. Is a large amount of knowledge absolutely required to solve

the problem, or is it important only to constrain the search?

7. Must problem-solving be interactive?

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1. Decomposable and Non-Decomposable

Problems

(x2 + 3x + sin2x cos2x) dx

x2dx 3xdx sin2x cos2xdx

x3 3xdx (1—cos2x) cos2xdx

3

3x2 cos2xdx cos4xdx

2

Recursive Decomposition
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1. Decomposable and Non-Decomposable

Problems
A Simple Blocks World Problem
Start A Goal

C B

A B C

ON(C, A) ON(B, C) and ON(A, B)

1. CLEAR(x) —> ON(x, Table) pick up x and
block x has put it on table
nothing on it

2. CLEAR(x) and CLEAR(y) —> ON(x, y) put x on y

ON(B, C) and ON(A, B)

ON(B, C) ON(A, B)
Put B on C
ON(B, C) CLEAR(A) ON(A, B)
Put A
Move C to table on B
CLEAR(A) ON(A, B)
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1. Decomposable and Non-Decomposable

Problems
A Digital Lock Problem
(decomposable)

1 3 2 7
....
10 windows
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2. Ignorability

8-Puzzle

Start Goal
2 8 3 1 2 3
1 6 4 8 4
7 5 7 6 5

— Ignorable (theorem proving) can be ignored

— Recoverable (8-puzzle) solution steps can be undone

— Irrecoverable (chess) cannot be undone

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3. Is the Universe predictable?

What about 8-Puzzle?

— Playing bridge.
We do not know the current state. But we can do fairly well
since we have available accurate estimates of the probabilities
of each of the possible outcomes.

— Controlling a robot arm.

The outcome is uncertain for a variety of reasons. Someone
might move into the path of the arm. The gears of the arm
might stick. A slight error could cause the arm to knock
over a whole stack of things.

— Helping a lawyer decide how to defend his client against

a murder charge.
Here we probably cannot even list all possible outcomes,
much less assess their probabilities.

The worst scenario:

Irrecoverable, uncertain-outcome problem
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4. Absolute or
relatively good solution
Facts about Marcus

1. Marcus was a man.

2. Marcus was a Pompeian.

3. Marcus was born in 40 A.D.

4. All men are mortal.

5. All Pompeians died when volcano erupted in 79 A.D.

6. No mortal lives longer than 150 years.

7. It is now 2009 A.D.

Is Marcus alive?

Solution 1

7. It is now 2009 A.D. axiom 7

5. All Pompeians died in 79 A.D. axiom 5
11. All Pompeians are dead now. 7, 5
2. Marcus was a Pompeian. axiom 2
12 Marcus is dead. 11, 2
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4. Absolute or
relatively good solution
Facts about Marcus
1. Marcus was a man.

2. Marcus was a Pompeian.

3. Marcus was born in 40 A.D.

4. All men are mortal.

5. All Pompeians died when volcano erupted in 79 A.D.

6. No mortal lives longer than 150 years.

7. It is now 2009 A.D.

Is Marcus alive?

Solution 2
1. Marcus is a man. axiom 1
4. All men are mortal axiom 4
8. Marcus is mortal. 1, 4
3. Marcus was born in 40 A.D. axiom 3
7. It is now 2009 A.D. axiom 7
9 Marcus' age is 1969 years. 3, 7
6. No mortal lives longer than 150 years axiom 6
10. Marcus is dead 8, 6, 9
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4. Absolute or relatively good solution

An Instance of the Traveling Salesman Problem
Boston New Miami Dallas S.
York Francisco
Boston 250 1450 1700 3000
New York 250 1200 1500 2900
Miami 1450 1200 1600 3300
Dallas 1700 1500 1600 1700
S. 3000 2900 3300 1700
Francisco

Boston
(3000) (250)
San Francisco New York

(1700) (1200)

Dallas Miami

(1500) (1600)

New York Dallas

(1200) (1700)

Miami San Francisco

(3000)
(1450)
Boston Boston

Total: 8850 Total: 7750

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5. Is the solution a State or a Path to the State?

Consider the problem of finding interpretation of the
following statement?

The bank president ate a dish of pasta salad with fork.

— The word "bank" may refer either to a financial institution

or to a side of a river. But only one of these may have a
president.

— The word "dish" is the object of the verb "eat". It is

possible that a dish was eaten. But it is more likely that the
pasta salad in the dish was eaten.

— Pasta salad is a salad containing pasta. But there are other

ways meanings can be formed from pairs of nouns. For
example, dog food does not normally contain dogs.

— The phrase "with the fork" could modify several parts of

the sentence. In this case, it modifies the verb "eat". But, if
the phrase had been "with vegetables" then the
modification structure would be different. And if the phrase
had been "with her friends," the structure would be
different still.
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5. Is the solution a State or a Path to the State?

Boston
(3000) (250)
San Francisco New York

(1700) (1200)

Dallas Miami

(1500) (1600)

New York Dallas

(1200) (1700)

Miami San Francisco

(3000)
(1450)
Boston Boston

Total: 8850 Total: 7750

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6. What is the role of knowledge?

— The names of the candidates in each party.

— The fact that if the major thing you want to see done is
have taxes lowed, you are probably supporting the
Republicans.

— The fact that if the major thing you want to see done is
improved education for minority students, you are probably
supporting the Democrats.

— The fact that if you are opposed to big government, you are
probably supporting the Republicans.

— And so on . . .

— What can we say about the game of chess?

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7. Does the task require interaction?

Two types of problems:

— Solitary,
in which the computer is given a problem description and
produces an answer with no immediate communication and
with no demand for an explanation of the reasoning
process.

— Conversational,
in which there is intermediate communication between a
person and the computer, either to provide additional
assistance to the computer or to provide additional
information to the user, or both.
(Geometry theorem proving).