Vidya Vikas Education Trust’s

Universal College of Engineering, Vasai(E)

AI
CH:02
Intelligent Agents
 Content
• Introduction of agents,
• Structure of Intelligent Agent,
• Characteristics of Intelligent Agents
• Types of Agents: Simple Reflex, Model Based, Goal
Based, Utility Based Agents.
• Environment Types: Deterministic, Stochastic,
Static, Dynamic,Observable, Semi-observable,
Single Agent, Multi Agent
 Agent
• An agent is anything that can be viewed as
perceiving its environment through sensors
and acting upon that environment through
actuators
 Vacuum-cleaner world

• This world has just two locations: squares A and B.

• The vacuum agent perceives which square it is in and
whether there is dirt in the square.
• It can choose to move left, move right, suck up the
dirt, or do nothing.
• One very simple agent function is the following: if the
current square is dirty, then suck; otherwise, move to
the other square.
• A partial tabulation of this agent function is shown
 Structure of an AI Agent

• The task of AI is to design an agent program which implements the agent

function.
• The structure of an intelligent agent is a combination of architecture and
agent program. It can be viewed as:
• Agent = Architecture + Agent program
• Architecture: Architecture is machinery that an AI agent executes on.
• Agent Function: Agent function is used to map a percept to an action.
• f:P* → A
• Agent program: Agent program is an implementation of agent function.
An agent program executes on the physical architecture to produce
function f.
 Characteristics of Agent

• 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: Vacuum cleaner

• 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.
• Sociability
The agent is capable of interacting in a peer-to-peer manner with
other agents or humans.
 Types of Environment
• Fully observable vs. partially observable
• Single agent vs. multiagent
• Deterministic vs. stochastic
• Episodic vs. sequential
• Static vs. dynamic
• Discrete vs. continuous
• Known vs. unknown
 1.Fully observable vs. partially
observable:
• If an agent’s sensors give it access to the complete state of the
environment at each point in time, then we say that the task
environment is fully observable.
• Fully observable environments are convenient because agent need not
maintain any internal state to keep track of the world.
• An environment is partially observable because of noisy and inaccurate
sensors or parts of state are missing from sensor data.
• For example, a vacuum agent with only a local dirt sensor cannot tell
whether there is dirt in other squares, and an automated taxi cannot see
what other drivers are thinking.
 2.Single agent vs. multiagent:
• For example, an agent solving a crossword puzzle by itself is clearly
in a single-agent environment,

• whereas an agent playing chess is in a two agent environment.

• Chess is a competitive multiagent environment.

• Carrom is multiagent.
 3.Deterministic vs. stochastic.
• Deterministic vs. stochastic.
• If the next state of the environment is completely
determined by the current state and the action executed by
the agent, then we say the environment is deterministic;

• otherwise, it is stochastic.

• Playing chess is deterministic.

• Taxi driving is clearly stochastic because one can never
predict the behaviour of traffic.
.
 4.Episodic vs. sequential:
• In an episodic task environment, the agent’s experience is divided into
atomic episodes.
• In each episode the agent receives a percept and then performs a single
action.The next episode does not depend on the actions taken in
previous episodes. Many classification tasks are episodic.
• For example, an agent that has to spot defective parts on an assembly
line bases each decision on the current part, regardless of previous
decisions;
• In sequential environment current decision could affect all future
decisions.
• Chess and taxi driving are sequential: in both cases, short-term actions
can have long-term consequences.
 5.Static vs. dynamic:
• If the environment can change while an agent is deliberating, then we
say the environment is dynamic for that agent; otherwise, it is static.
• Eg. Taxi driving is clearly dynamic: the other cars and the taxi itself
keep moving
• Crossword puzzles are static
 6.Discrete vs. continuous
• If the environment has limited number of distinct state clearly
defined percepts and actions then the environment is discrete.

• For example, the chess environment has a finite number of

distinct states.

• Taxi driving is a continuous-state and continuous-time

problem: the speed and location of the taxi and of the other
vehicles sweep through a range of continuous values.
 7.Known vs. unknown:
• In a known environment, the outcomes for all actions are
given.
• Obviously, if the environment is unknown, the agent will have
to learn how it works in order to make good decisions.
• for example, in solitaire card games, I know the rules but am
still unable to see the cards that have not yet been turned over.
• Conversely, an unknown environment can be fully observable
—in a new video game, the screen may show the entire game
state but I still don’t know what the buttons do until I try them.
● Observable (Fully/Partially)
● Single/Multi agent
● Deterministic
● Sequential
● Static
● Discrete
 Type 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; and
• Utility-based agents.
 1.Simple reflex agent.
• These agents select actions based on the current percept, ignoring the
rest of the percept history.
• For example, the vacuum agent because its decision is based only on
the current location and on whether that location contains dirt
condition–action rule, written as
if status = Dirty then Clean
else if location = A then Right

if car-in-front-is-braking then initiate-braking

EG: Medical diagnosis system
If the patient has cold, fever, cough, breathing problem then start the
treatment for viral infection.
The agent function is based on the condition-action rule. A condition-action rule is
a rule that maps a state i.e, condition to an action. If the condition is true, then the
action is taken, else not.

function SIMPLE-REFLEX-AGENT(percept) returns an action

persistent: rules, a set of condition–action rules
state ← INTERPRET-INPUT(percept)
rule ← RULE-MATCH(state, rules)
action ← rule.ACTION
return action
 2.Model-based reflex agent.
• It uses internal model to keep track of the
current state of the world.
• The Model-based agent can work in a partially
observable environment, and track the situation
• For other driving tasks such as changing lanes,
the agent needs to keep track of where the other
cars are if it can’t see them all at once.
● Model: It is knowledge about "how things happen in the
world," so it is called a Model-based agent.
● Internal State: It is a representation of the current state based
on percept history.
 3.Goal Based Agent
• The knowledge of the current state environment is not always
sufficient to decide for an agent to what to do.
• An agent knows the description of current state and also
needs some sort of goal information that describes situation
that are desirable.
• The action matched with the current state selected depends on
the goal state.
• The goal based agent is more flexible for more than one
destination.
• After identifying one destination the new destination is
specified goal based agent is activated to come up with a
behavior.
 4.Utility based Agent
• These agents are similar to the goal-based agent but
provide an extra component of utility measurement
which makes them different by providing a measure
of success at a given state.
• Utility-based agent act based not only goals but also
the best way to achieve the goal.
• 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.
• The utility function maps each state to a real number
to check how efficiently each action achieves the
goals.
 Utility based Agent
• Goals alone are not enough to generate high-quality
behavior in most environments.
• For example, many action sequences will get the taxi to
its destination (thereby achieving the goal) but some are
quicker, safer, more reliable, or cheaper than others.
• when there are conflicting goals,only some of which can
be achieved (for example, speed and safety),
• The utility function specifies the appropriate tradeoff or
the most important goal
• they choose the action based on a preference (utility)for

each state.
 Difference between goal-based agents and
utility-based agents
• Goal based agents decides its actions based on goal whereas Utility
based agents decides its actions based on utilities.
• Goal based agents are more flexible whereas Utility based agents are
less flexible.
• Goal based agents are less faster whereas Utility based agents are
more faster.
• Goal based agents are not enough to generate high-quality behavior
in most environment whereas Utility based agents are enough to
generate high-quality behavior in most environment.
• Goal based agents can not specify the appropriate tradeoff whereas
Utility based agents can specify the appropriate tradeoff .
• Goal based agents are less safer whereas Utility based agents are
more safer
 Rational
• Rational dictionary meaning is something
logical, sensible and not emotional.
• A rational agent is one that does the right
thing.
• The rationality of an agent is measured by its
performance measure.
Thank you !

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