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Artificial Intelligence Tutorial

The Artificial Intelligence tutorial provides an introduction to AI which will help you to
understand the concepts behind Artificial Intelligence. In this tutorial, we have also discussed
various popular topics such as History of AI, applications of AI, deep learning, machine
learning, natural language processing, Reinforcement learning, Q-learning, Intelligent agents,
Various search algorithms, etc.

Our AI tutorial is prepared from an elementary level so you can easily understand the
complete tutorial from basic concepts to the high-level concepts.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

In today's world, technology is growing very fast, and we are getting in touch with different
new technologies day by day.

Here, one of the booming technologies of computer science is Artificial Intelligence which is
ready to create a new revolution in the world by making intelligent machines. The Artificial
Intelligence is now all around us. It is currently working with a variety of subfields, ranging
from general to specific, such as self-driving cars, playing chess, proving theorems, playing
music, Painting, etc.

AI is one of the fascinating and universal fields of Computer science which has a great scope
in future. AI holds a tendency to cause a machine to work as a human.

Artificial Intelligence is composed of two words Artificial and Intelligence, where Artificial
defines "man-made," and intelligence defines "thinking power", hence AI means "a man-
made thinking power."

So, we can define AI as:

"It is a branch of computer science by which we can create intelligent machines which can
behave like a human, think like humans, and able to make decisions." Artificial Intelligence
exists when IT IS a machine can have human based skills such as learning, reasoning, and solving
problems

With Artificial Intelligence you do not need to preprogram a machine to do some work,
despite that you can create a machine with programmed algorithms which can work with own
intelligence, and that is the awesomeness of AI.

which can work and behave like humans.It is believed that AI is not a new technology, and
some people says that as per Greek myth, there were Mechanical men in early days

Why Artificial Intelligence?

Before Learning about Artificial Intelligence, we should know that what is the importance of
AI and why should we learn it. Following are some main reasons to learn about AI:

With the help of AI

 you can create such software or devices which can solve real-world problems very
easily and with accuracy, eg such as health issues, marketing, traffic issues, etc.
 you can create your personal virtual Assistant, such as Cortana, Google Assistant, Siri,
etc.
 you can build such Robots which can work in an environment where survival of
humans can be at risk.
 AI opens a path for other new technologies, new devices, and new Opportunities.

Goals of Artificial Intelligence

the main goals of Artificial Intelligence includes:

 Replicate human intelligence

 Solve Knowledge-intensive tasks
 An intelligent connection of perception and action
 Building a machine which can perform tasks that requires human intelligence such as:

 Proving a theorem
 Playing chess
 Plan some surgical operation
 Driving a car in traffic

 Creating some system which can exhibit intelligent behavior, learn new things by
itself, demonstrate, explain, and can advise to its user.

What Comprises to Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is not just a part of computer science even it's so vast and requires lots
of other factors which can contribute to it. To create the AI first we should know that how
intelligence is composed, so the Intelligence is an intangible part of our brain which is a
combination of Reasoning, learning, problem-solving perception, language
understanding, etc.

To achieve the above factors for a machine or software

Artificial Intelligence requires the following discipline:

o Mathematics
o Biology
o Psychology
o Sociology
o Computer Science
o Neurons Study
o Statistics

Advantages of Artificial Intelligence

Following are some main advantages of Artificial Intelligence:

 o High Accuracy with less errors: AI machines or systems are prone to less errors and
high accuracy as it takes decisions as per pre-experience or information.
o High-Speed: AI systems can be of very high-speed and fast-decision making, because
of that AI systems can beat a chess champion in the Chess game.
o High reliability: AI machines are highly reliable and can perform the same action
multiple times with high accuracy.
o Useful for risky areas: AI machines can be helpful in situations such as defusing a
bomb, exploring the ocean floor, where to employ a human can be risky.
o Digital Assistant: AI can be very useful to provide digital assistant to the users such
as AI technology is currently used by various E-commerce websites to show the
products as per customer requirement.
o Useful as a public utility: AI can be very useful for public utilities such as a self-
driving car which can make our journey safer and hassle-free, facial recognition for
security purpose, Natural language processing to communicate with the human in
human-language, etc.

Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence

Every technology has some disadvantages, and thesame goes for Artificial intelligence. Being
so advantageous technology still, it has some disadvantages which we need to keep in our
mind while creating an AI system. Following are the disadvantages of AI:

o High Cost: The hardware and software requirement of AI is very costly as it requires
lots of maintenance to meet current world requirements.
o Can't think out of the box: Even we are making smarter machines with AI, but still
they cannot work out of the box, as the robot will only do that work for which they are
trained, or programmed.
o No feelings and emotions: AI machines can be an outstanding performer, but still it
does not have the feeling so it cannot make any kind of emotional attachment with
human, and may sometime be harmful for users if the proper care is not taken.
o Increase dependency on machines: With the increment of technology, people are
getting more dependent on devices and hence they are losing their mental capabilities.
o No Original Creativity: As humans are so creative and can imagine some new ideas
but still AI machines cannot beat this power of human intelligence and cannot be
 creative and imaginative.

Prerequisite

Before learning about Artificial Intelligence, you must have the fundamental knowledge of
following so that you can understand the concepts easily:

o Any computer language such as C, C++, Java, Python, etc.(knowledge of Python will
be an advantage)
o Knowledge of essential Mathematics such as derivatives, probability theory, etc.

Audience

Our AI tutorial is designed specifically for beginners and also included some high-level
concepts for professionals.

Problems

We assure you that you will not find any difficulty while learning our AI tutorial. But if there
any mistake, kindly post the problem in the contact form
Application of AI

Artificial Intelligence has various applications in today's society. It is becoming essential for
today's time because it can solve complex problems with an efficient way in multiple industries,
such as Healthcare, entertainment, finance, education, etc. AI is making our daily life more
comfortable and fast.

Following are some sectors which have the application of Artificial Intelligence:

1. AI in Astronomy

o Artificial Intelligence can be very useful to solve complex universe problems. AI

technology can be helpful for understanding the universe such as how it works, origin,
etc.

2. AI in Healthcare
 o In the last, five to ten years, AI becoming more advantageous for the healthcare industry
and going to have a significant impact on this industry.
o Healthcare Industries are applying AI to make a better and faster diagnosis than humans.
AI can help doctors with diagnoses and can inform when patients are worsening so that
medical help can reach to the patient before hospitalization.

3. AI in Gaming

o AI can be used for gaming purpose. The AI machines can play strategic games like chess,
where the machine needs to think of a large number of possible places.

4. AI in Finance

o AI and finance industries are the best matches for each other. The finance industry is
implementing automation, chatbot, adaptive intelligence, algorithm trading, and machine
learning into financial processes.

5. AI in Data Security

o The security of data is crucial for every company and cyber-attacks are growing very
rapidly in the digital world. AI can be used to make your data more safe and secure.
Some examples such as AEG bot, AI2 Platform,are used to determine software bug and
cyber-attacks in a better way.

6. AI in Social Media

o Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat contain billions of user
profiles, which need to be stored and managed in a very efficient way. AI can organize
and manage massive amounts of data. AI can analyze lots of data to identify the latest
trends, hashtag, and requirement of different users.

7. AI in Travel & Transport

o AI is becoming highly demanding for travel industries. AI is capable of doing various

travel related works such as from making travel arrangement to suggesting the hotels,
flights, and best routes to the customers. Travel industries are using AI-powered chatbots
which can make human-like interaction with customers for better and fast response.
8. AI in Automotive Industry

o Some Automotive industries are using AI to provide virtual assistant to their user for
better performance. Such as Tesla has introduced TeslaBot, an intelligent virtual
assistant.
o Various Industries are currently working for developing self-driven cars which can make
your journey more safe and secure.

9. AI in Robotics:

o Artificial Intelligence has a remarkable role in Robotics. Usually, general robots are
programmed such that they can perform some repetitive task, but with the help of AI, we
can create intelligent robots which can perform tasks with their own experiences without
pre-programmed.
o Humanoid Robots are best examples for AI in robotics, recently the intelligent Humanoid
robot named as Erica and Sophia has been developed which can talk and behave like
humans.

10. AI in Entertainment

o We are currently using some AI based applications in our daily life with some
entertainment services such as Netflix or Amazon. With the help of ML/AI algorithms,
these services show the recommendations for programs or shows.

11. AI in Agriculture

o Agriculture is an area which requires various resources, labor, money, and time for best
result. Now a day's agriculture is becoming digital, and AI is emerging in this field.
Agriculture is applying AI as agriculture robotics, solid and crop monitoring, predictive
analysis. AI in agriculture can be very helpful for farmers.

12. AI in E-commerce

o AI is providing a competitive edge to the e-commerce industry, and it is becoming more

demanding in the e-commerce business. AI is helping shoppers to discover associated
products with recommended size, color, or even brand.
13. AI in education:

o AI can automate grading so that the tutor can have more time to teach. AI chatbot can
communicate with students as a teaching assistant.
o AI in the future can be work as a personal virtual tutor for students, which will be
accessible easily at any time and any place.

History of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is not a new word and not a new technology for researchers. This
technology is much older than you would imagine. Even there are the myths of Mechanical men
in Ancient Greek and Egyptian Myths. Following are some milestones in the history of AI which
defines the journey from the AI generation to till date development.
Maturation of Artificial Intelligence (1943-1952)
o Year 1943: The first work which is now recognized as AI was done by Warren
McCulloch and Walter pits in 1943. They proposed a model of artificial neurons.
o Year 1949: Donald Hebb demonstrated an updating rule for modifying the connection
strength between neurons. His rule is now called Hebbian learning.
o Year 1950: The Alan Turing who was an English mathematician and pioneered Machine
learning in 1950. Alan Turing publishes "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in
which he proposed a test. The test can check the machine's ability to exhibit intelligent
behavior equivalent to human intelligence, called a Turing test.
The birth of Artificial Intelligence (1952-1956)
o Year 1955: An Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon created the "first artificial
intelligence program"Which was named as "Logic Theorist". This program had proved
38 of 52 Mathematics theorems, and find new and more elegant proofs for some
theorems.
o Year 1956: The word "Artificial Intelligence" first adopted by American Computer
scientist John McCarthy at the Dartmouth Conference. For the first time, AI coined as an
academic field.

At that time high-level computer languages such as FORTRAN, LISP, or COBOL were
invented. And the enthusiasm for AI was very high at that time.

The golden years-Early enthusiasm (1956-1974)

o Year 1966: The researchers emphasized developing algorithms which can solve
mathematical problems. Joseph Weizenbaum created the first chatbot in 1966, which was
named as ELIZA.
o Year 1972: The first intelligent humanoid robot was built in Japan which was named as
WABOT-1.

The first AI winter (1974-1980)

o The duration between years 1974 to 1980 was the first AI winter duration. AI winter
refers to the time period where computer scientist dealt with a severe shortage of funding
from government for AI researches.
o During AI winters, an interest of publicity on artificial intelligence was decreased.

A boom of AI (1980-1987)
o Year 1980: After AI winter duration, AI came back with "Expert System". Expert
systems were programmed that emulate the decision-making ability of a human expert.
o In the Year 1980, the first national conference of the American Association of Artificial
Intelligence was held at Stanford University.

The second AI winter (1987-1993)

o The duration between the years 1987 to 1993 was the second AI Winter duration.
o Again Investors and government stopped in funding for AI research as due to high cost
but not efficient result. The expert system such as XCON was very cost effective.
The emergence of intelligent agents (1993-2011)
o Year 1997: In the year 1997, IBM Deep Blue beats world chess champion, Gary
Kasparov, and became the first computer to beat a world chess champion.
o Year 2002: for the first time, AI entered the home in the form of Roomba, a vacuum
cleaner.
o Year 2006: AI came in the Business world till the year 2006. Companies like Facebook,
Twitter, and Netflix also started using AI.

Deep learning, big data and artificial general intelligence (2011-present)

o Year 2011: In the year 2011, IBM's Watson won jeopardy, a quiz show, where it had to
solve the complex questions as well as riddles. Watson had proved that it could
understand natural language and can solve tricky questions quickly.
o Year 2012: Google has launched an Android app feature "Google now", which was able
to provide information to the user as a prediction.
o Year 2014: In the year 2014, Chatbot "Eugene Goostman" won a competition in the
infamous "Turing test."
o Year 2018: The "Project Debater" from IBM debated on complex topics with two master
debaters and also performed extremely well.
o Google has demonstrated an AI program "Duplex" which was a virtual assistant and
which had taken hairdresser appointment on call, and lady on other side didn't notice that
she was talking with the machine.

Now AI has developed to a remarkable level. The concept of Deep learning, big data, and data
science are now trending like a boom. Nowadays companies like Google, Facebook, IBM, and
Amazon are working with AI and creating amazing devices. The future of Artificial Intelligence
is inspiring and will come with high intelligence.

Next Topic Types of AI

Types of Artificial Intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence can be divided in various types, there are mainly two types of main
categorization which are based on capabilities and based on functionally of AI. Following is flow
diagram which explain the types of AI.

AI type-1: Based on Capabilities

1. Weak AI or Narrow AI:

o Narrow AI is a type of AI which is able to perform a dedicated task with intelligence. The
most common and currently available AI is Narrow AI in the world of Artificial
Intelligence.
o Narrow AI cannot perform beyond its field or limitations, as it is only trained for one
specific task. Hence it is also termed as weak AI. Narrow AI can fail in unpredictable
ways if it goes beyond its limits.
o Apple Siri is a good example of Narrow AI, but it operates with a limited pre-defined
range of functions.
o IBM's Watson supercomputer also comes under Narrow AI, as it uses an Expert system
approach combined with Machine learning and natural language processing.
o Some Examples of Narrow AI are playing chess, purchasing suggestions on e-commerce
site, self-driving cars, speech recognition, and image recognition.

2. General AI:
 o General AI is a type of intelligence which could perform any intellectual task with
efficiency like a human.
o The idea behind the general AI to make such a system which could be smarter and think
like a human by its own.
o Currently, there is no such system exist which could come under general AI and can
perform any task as perfect as a human.
o The worldwide researchers are now focused on developing machines with General AI.
o As systems with general AI are still under research, and it will take lots of efforts and
time to develop such systems.

3. Super AI:

o Super AI is a level of Intelligence of Systems at which machines could surpass human

intelligence, and can perform any task better than human with cognitive properties. It is
an outcome of general AI.
o Some key characteristics of strong AI include capability include the ability to think, to
reason, solve the puzzle, make judgments, plan, learn, and communicate by its own.
o Super AI is still a hypothetical concept of Artificial Intelligence. Development of such
systems in real is still world changing task.

Artificial Intelligence type-2: Based on functionality

1. Reactive Machines
 o Purely reactive machines are the most basic types of Artificial Intelligence.
o Such AI systems do not store memories or past experiences for future actions.
o These machines only focus on current scenarios and react on it as per possible best
action.
o IBM's Deep Blue system is an example of reactive machines.
o Google's AlphaGo is also an example of reactive machines.

2. Limited Memory

o Limited memory machines can store past experiences or some data for a short period of
time.
o These machines can use stored data for a limited time period only.
o Self-driving cars are one of the best examples of Limited Memory systems. These cars
can store recent speed of nearby cars, the distance of other cars, speed limit, and other
information to navigate the road.

3. Theory of Mind

o Theory of Mind AI should understand the human emotions, people, beliefs, and be able
to interact socially like humans.
o This type of AI machines are still not developed, but researchers are making lots of
efforts and improvement for developing such AI machines.

4. Self-Awareness

o Self-awareness AI is the future of Artificial Intelligence. These machines will be super

intelligent, and will have their own consciousness, sentiments, and self-awareness.
o These machines will be smarter than human mind.
o Self-Awareness AI does not exist in reality still and it is a hypothetical concept.

Next Topic

Types of Agents
Types of AI Agents

Agents can be grouped into five classes based on their degree of perceived intelligence and
capability. All these agents can improve their performance and generate better action over the
time. These are given below:

o Simple Reflex Agent

o Model-based reflex agent
o Goal-based agents
o Utility-based agent
o Learning agent

1. Simple Reflex agent:

o 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.
o These agents only succeed in the fully observable environment.
o The Simple reflex agent does not consider any part of percepts history during their
decision and action process.
o 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.
o 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
o Mostly too big to generate and to store.
o Not adaptive to changes in the environment.
2. Model-based reflex agent
o The Model-based agent can work in a partially observable environment, and track the
situation.
o 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.
o These agents have the model, "which is knowledge of the world" and based on the model
they perform actions.
o Updating the agent state requires information about:
o How the world evolves
o How the agent's action affects the world.
3. 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.
4. Utility-based agents
o 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.
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.
5. Learning Agents
o A learning agent learn from its past experiences, or it has learning capabilities.
o act with basic knowledge and then able to act and adapt automatically through learning.
o four conceptual components:
1. Learning element: It is responsible for making improvements by learning from
environment
2. Critic: Learning element takes feedback from critic which describes that how
well the agent is doing with respect to a fixed performance standard.
3. Performance element: It is responsible for selecting external action
4. 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.
Next Topic Intelligent Agent
Agents in Artificial Intelligence

An AI system can be defined as the study of the rational agent and its environment. The agents
sense the environment through sensors and act on their environment through actuators. An AI
agent can have mental properties such as knowledge, belief, intention, etc.

What is an Agent?

An agent can be anything that perceiveits environment through sensors and act upon that
environment through actuators. An Agent runs in the cycle of perceiving, thinking, and acting.
An agent can be:

o Human-Agent: A human agent has eyes, ears, and other organs which work for sensors
and hand, legs, vocal tract work for actuators.
o Robotic Agent: A robotic agent can have cameras, infrared range finder, NLP for
sensors and various motors for actuators.
o 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, cellphone, 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.

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.
Intelligent Agents:

An intelligent agent is an autonomous entity which act upon an environment using sensors and
actuators for achieving goals. An intelligent agent may learn from the environment to achieve
their goals. A thermostat is an example of an intelligent agent.

Following are the main four rules for an AI agent:

o Rule 1: An AI agent must have the ability to perceive the environment.

o Rule 2: The observation must be used to make decisions.
o Rule 3: Decision should result in an action.
o Rule 4: The action taken by an AI agent must be a rational action.

Rational Agent:

A rational agent is an agent which has clear preference, models uncertainty, and acts in a way to
maximize its performance measure with all possible actions.

A rational agent is said to perform the right things. AI is about creating rational agents to use for
game theory and decision theory for various real-world scenarios.

For an AI agent, the rational action is most important because in AI reinforcement learning
algorithm, for each best possible action, agent gets the positive reward and for each wrong
action, an agent gets a negative reward.

Note: Rational agents in AI are very similar to intelligent agents.

Rationality:
 The rationality of an agent is measured by its performance measure. Rationality can be judged on
the basis of following points:

o Performance measure which defines the success criterion.

o Agent prior knowledge of its environment.
o Best possible actions that an agent can perform.
o The sequence of percepts.

Note: Rationality differs from Omniscience because an Omniscient agent knows the actual
outcome of its action and act accordingly, which is not possible in reality.
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:

1. Agent = Architecture + Agent program

Following are the main three terms involved in the structure of an AI agent:

Architecture: Architecture is machinery that an AI agent executes on.

Agent Function: Agent function is used to map a percept to an action.

1. 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.

PEAS Representation

PEAS is a type of model on which an AI agent works upon. When we define an AI agent or
rational agent, then we can group its properties under PEAS representation model. It is made up
of four words:

o P: Performance measure
o E: Environment
o A: Actuators
o S: Sensors

Here performance measure is the objective for the success of an agent's behavior.
PEAS for self-driving cars:

Let's suppose a self-driving car then PEAS representation will be:

Performance: Safety, time, legal drive, comfort

Environment: Roads, other vehicles, road signs, pedestrian

Actuators: Steering, accelerator, brake, signal, horn

Sensors: Camera, GPS, speedometer, odometer, accelerometer, sonar.

Example of Agents with their PEAS representation

Agent Performance Environment Actuators Sensors
measure

1. Medical Healthy patient Patient Tests Keyboard

Diagnose (Entry of
Minimized cost Hospital Treatments
symptoms)
Staff

2. Vacuum Cleanness Room Wheels Camera

Cleaner
Efficiency Table Brushes Dirt detection
sensor
Battery life Wood floor Vacuum
Extractor Cliff sensor
Carpet
 Security Various obstacles Bump Sensor
Infrared Wall
Sensor

3. Part - Percentage of parts Conveyor belt Jointed Arms Camera

picking in correct bins. with parts,
Hand Joint angle
Robot
Bins sensors.

Next Topic Agent Environment

Agent Environment in AI

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. An environment is mostly said to be non-feministic.

Features of Environment

As per Russell and Norvig, an environment can have various features from the point of view of
an agent:

1. Fully observable vs Partially Observable

2. Static vs Dynamic
3. Discrete vs Continuous
4. Deterministic vs Stochastic
5. Single-agent vs Multi-agent
6. Episodic vs sequential
7. Known vs Unknown
8. Accessible vs Inaccessible

1. Fully observable vs Partially Observable:

o 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.
o A fully observable environment is easy as there is no need to maintain the internal state to
keep track history of the world.
o An agent with no sensors in all environments then such an environment is called
as unobservable.

2. Deterministic vs Stochastic:
o 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.
o A stochastic environment is random in nature and cannot be determined completely by an
agent.
 o In a deterministic, fully observable environment, agent does not need to worry about
uncertainty.

3. Episodic vs Sequential:
o In an episodic environment, there is a series of one-shot actions, and only the current
percept is required for the action.
o However, in Sequential environment, an agent requires memory of past actions to
determine the next best actions.

4. Single-agent vs Multi-agent
o If only one agent is involved in an environment, and operating by itself then such an
environment is called single agent environment.
o However, if multiple agents are operating in an environment, then such an environment is
called a multi-agent environment.
o The agent design problems in the multi-agent environment are different from single agent
environment.

5. Static vs Dynamic:
o 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.
o Static environments are easy to deal because an agent does not need to continue looking
at the world while deciding for an action.
o However for dynamic environment, agents need to keep looking at the world at each
action.
o Taxi driving is an example of a dynamic environment whereas Crossword puzzles are an
example of a static environment.

6. Discrete vs Continuous:
o If in an environment there are a finite number of percepts and actions that can be
performed within it, then such an environment is called a discrete environment else it is
called continuous environment.
o A chess gamecomes under discrete environment as there is a finite number of moves that
can be performed.
o A self-driving car is an example of a continuous environment.
7. Known vs Unknown
o Known and unknown are not actually a feature of an environment, but it is an agent's
state of knowledge to perform an action.
o 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.
o It is quite possible that a known environment to be partially observable and an Unknown
environment to be fully observable.

8. Accessible vs Inaccessible
o 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.
o An empty room whose state can be defined by its temperature is an example of an
accessible environment.
o Information about an event on earth is an example of Inaccessible environment.

Next Topic Turing Test in AI

Turing Test in AI

In 1950, Alan Turing introduced a test to check whether a machine can think like a human or not,
this test is known as the Turing Test. In this test, Turing proposed that the computer can be said
to be an intelligent if it can mimic human response under specific conditions.

Turing Test was introduced by Turing in his 1950 paper, "Computing Machinery and
Intelligence," which considered the question, "Can Machine think?"

The Turing test is based on a party game "Imitation game," with some modifications. This game
involves three players in which one player is Computer, another player is human responder, and
the third player is a human Interrogator, who is isolated from other two players and his job is to
find that which player is machine among two of them.

Consider, Player A is a computer, Player B is human, and Player C is an interrogator.

Interrogator is aware that one of them is machine, but he needs to identify this on the basis of
questions and their responses.
The conversation between all players is via keyboard and screen so the result would not depend
on the machine's ability to convert words as speech.

The test result does not depend on each correct answer, but only how closely its responses like a
human answer. The computer is permitted to do everything possible to force a wrong
identification by the interrogator.

The questions and answers can be like:

Interrogator: Are you a computer?

PlayerA (Computer): No

Interrogator: Multiply two large numbers such as (256896489*456725896)

Player A: Long pause and give the wrong answer.

In this game, if an interrogator would not be able to identify which is a machine and which is
human, then the computer passes the test successfully, and the machine is said to be intelligent
and can think like a human.

"In 1991, the New York businessman Hugh Loebner announces the prize competition, offering a
$100,000 prize for the first computer to pass the Turing test. However, no AI program to till
date, come close to passing an undiluted Turing test".

Chatbots to attempt the Turing test:

ELIZA: ELIZA was a Natural language processing computer program created by Joseph
Weizenbaum. It was created to demonstrate the ability of communication between machine and
humans. It was one of the first chatterbots, which has attempted the Turing Test.

Parry: Parry was a chatterbot created by Kenneth Colby in 1972. Parry was designed to simulate
a person with Paranoid schizophrenia(most common chronic mental disorder). Parry was
described as "ELIZA with attitude." Parry was tested using a variation of the Turing Test in the
early 1970s.

Eugene Goostman: Eugene Goostman was a chatbot developed in Saint Petersburg in 2001.
This bot has competed in the various number of Turing Test. In June 2012, at an event,
Goostman won the competition promoted as largest-ever Turing test content, in which it has
convinced 29% of judges that it was a human.Goostman resembled as a 13-year old virtual boy.

Features required for a machine to pass the Turing test:

o Natural language processing: NLP is required to communicate with Interrogator in
general human language like English.
 o Knowledge representation: To store and retrieve information during the test.
o Automated reasoning: To use the previously stored information for answering the
questions.
o Machine learning: To adapt new changes and can detect generalized patterns.
o Vision (For total Turing test): To recognize the interrogator actions and other objects
during a test.
o Motor Control (For total Turing test): To act upon objects if requested.

Next Topic Search Algorithms

2

Search Algorithms in Artificial Intelligence

Search algorithms are one of the most important areas of Artificial Intelligence. This topic will
explain all about the search algorithms in AI.

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, we will learn various problem-solving search
algorithms.

The Chinese Room Argument:

There were many philosophers who really disagreed with the complete concept of Artificial
Intelligence. The most famous argument in this list was "Chinese Room."

In the year 1980, John Searle presented "Chinese Room" thought experiment, in his paper
"Mind, Brains, and Program," which was against the validity of Turing's Test. According to
his argument, "Programming a computer may make it to understand a language, but it will
not produce a real understanding of language or consciousness in a computer."

He argued that Machine such as ELIZA and Parry could easily pass the Turing test by
manipulating keywords and symbol, but they had no real understanding of language. So it cannot
be described as "thinking" capability of a machine such as a human.

Search Algorithm Terminologies:

o Search: Searchingis 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.
o 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.
o Actions: It gives the description of all the available actions to the agent.
 o Transition model: A description of what each action do, can be represented as a
transition model.
o Path Cost: It is a function which assigns a numeric cost to each path.
o Solution: It is an action sequence which leads from the start node to the goal node.
o Optimal Solution: If a solution has the lowest cost among all solutions.

Properties of Search Algorithms:

Following are the four essential properties of search algorithms to compare the efficiency of
these algorithms:

Completeness: A search algorithm is said to be complete if it guarantees to return a solution if at

least any solution exists for any random input.

Optimality: If a solution found for an algorithm is guaranteed to be the best solution (lowest
path cost) among all other solutions, then such a solution for is said to be an optimal solution.

Time Complexity: Time complexity is a measure of time for an algorithm to complete its task.

Space Complexity: It is the maximum storage space required at any point during the search, as
the complexity of the problem.

Types of search algorithms

Based on the search problems we can classify the search algorithms into uninformed (Blind
search) search and informed search (Heuristic search) algorithms.
Uninformed/Blind Search:

The uninformed search does not contain any domain knowledge such as closeness, the location
of the goal. It operates in a brute-force way as it only includes information about how to traverse
the tree and how to identify leaf and goal nodes. Uninformed search applies a way in which
search tree is searched without any information about the search space like initial state operators
and test for the goal, so it is also called blind search.It examines each node of the tree until it
achieves the goal node.

It can be divided into five main types:

o Breadth-first search
o Uniform cost search
o Depth-first search
o Iterative deepening depth-first search
 o Bidirectional Search

Informed Search

Informed search algorithms use domain knowledge. In an informed search, problem information
is available which can guide the search. Informed search strategies can find a solution more
efficiently than an uninformed search strategy. Informed search is also called a Heuristic search.

A heuristic is a way which might not always be guaranteed for best solutions but guaranteed to
find a good solution in reasonable time.

Informed search can solve much complex problem which could not be solved in another way.

An example of informed search algorithms is a traveling salesman problem.

1. Greedy Search
2. A* Search
3. Traveling salesman problem.

Next Topic Uninformed Search Algorithms

Uninformed Search Algorithms

Uninformed search is a class of general-purpose search algorithms which operates in brute

force-way. Uninformed search algorithms do not have additional information about state
or search space other than how to traverse the tree, so it is also called blind search.

Following are the various types of uninformed search algorithms:

1. Breadth-first Search
2. Depth-first Search
3. Depth-limited Search
4. Iterative deepening depth-first search
5. Uniform cost search
6. Bidirectional Search

1. Breadth-first Search:
o Breadth-first search is the most common search strategy for traversing a tree or graph.
This algorithm searches breadthwise in a tree or graph, so it is called breadth-first search.
o BFS algorithm starts searching from the root node of the tree and expands all successor
node at the current level before moving to nodes of next level.
o The breadth-first search algorithm is an example of a general-graph search algorithm.
o Breadth-first search implemented using FIFO queue data structure.

Advantages:

o BFS will provide a solution if any solution exists.

o If there are more than one solutions for a given problem, then BFS will provide the
minimal solution which requires the least number of steps.

Disadvantages:

o It requires lots of memory since each level of the tree must be saved into memory to
expand the next level.
o BFS needs lots of time if the solution is far away from the root node.

Example:
 In the below tree structure, we have shown the traversing of the tree using BFS algorithm from
the root node S to goal node K. BFS search algorithm traverse in layers, so it will follow the path
which is shown by the dotted arrow, and the traversed path will be:

1. S---> A--->B---->C--->D---->G--->H--->E---->F---->I---->K

Time Complexity: Time Complexity of BFS algorithm can be obtained by the number of nodes
traversed in BFS until the shallowest Node. Where the d= depth of shallowest solution and b is a
node at every state.

T (b) = 1+b2+b3+.......+ bd= O (bd)

Space Complexity: Space complexity of BFS algorithm is given by the Memory size of frontier
which is O(bd).

Completeness: BFS is complete, which means if the shallowest goal node is at some finite
depth, then BFS will find a solution.

Optimality: BFS is optimal if path cost is a non-decreasing function of the depth of the node.

2. Depth-first Search
o Depth-first search isa recursive algorithm for traversing a tree or graph data structure.
 o It is called the depth-first search because it starts from the root node and follows each
path to its greatest depth node before moving to the next path.
o DFS uses a stack data structure for its implementation.
o The process of the DFS algorithm is similar to the BFS algorithm.

Note: Backtracking is an algorithm technique for finding all possible solutions using
recursion.

Advantage:

o DFS requires very less memory as it only needs to store a stack of the nodes on the path
from root node to the current node.
o It takes less time to reach to the goal node than BFS algorithm (if it traverses in the right
path).

Disadvantage:

o There is the possibility that many states keep re-occurring, and there is no guarantee of
finding the solution.
o DFS algorithm goes for deep down searching and sometime it may go to the infinite loop.

Example:

In the below search tree, we have shown the flow of depth-first search, and it will follow the
order as:

Root node--->Left node ----> right node.

It will start searching from root node S, and traverse A, then B, then D and E, after traversing E,
it will backtrack the tree as E has no other successor and still goal node is not found. After
backtracking it will traverse node C and then G, and here it will terminate as it found goal node.
Completeness: DFS search algorithm is complete within finite state space as it will expand
every node within a limited search tree.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of DFS will be equivalent to the node traversed by the
algorithm. It is given by:

T(n)= 1+ n2+ n3 +.........+ nm=O(nm)

Where, m= maximum depth of any node and this can be much larger than d (Shallowest
solution depth)

Space Complexity: DFS algorithm needs to store only single path from the root node, hence
space complexity of DFS is equivalent to the size of the fringe set, which is O(bm).

Optimal: DFS search algorithm is non-optimal, as it may generate a large number of steps or
high cost to reach to the goal node.

3. Depth-Limited Search Algorithm:

A depth-limited search algorithm is similar to depth-first search with a predetermined limit.

Depth-limited search can solve the drawback of the infinite path in the Depth-first search. In this
algorithm, the node at the depth limit will treat as it has no successor nodes further.
Depth-limited search can be terminated with two Conditions of failure:

o Standard failure value: It indicates that problem does not have any solution.
o Cutoff failure value: It defines no solution for the problem within a given depth limit.

Advantages:

Depth-limited search is Memory efficient.

Disadvantages:

o Depth-limited search also has a disadvantage of incompleteness.

o It may not be optimal if the problem has more than one solution.

Example:

Completeness: DLS search algorithm is complete if the solution is above the depth-limit.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of DLS algorithm is O(bℓ).

Space Complexity: Space complexity of DLS algorithm is O(b×ℓ).

Optimal: Depth-limited search can be viewed as a special case of DFS, and it is also not optimal
even if ℓ>d.

4. Uniform-cost Search Algorithm:

Uniform-cost search is a searching algorithm used for traversing a weighted tree or graph. This
algorithm comes into play when a different cost is available for each edge. The primary goal of
the uniform-cost search is to find a path to the goal node which has the lowest cumulative cost.
Uniform-cost search expands nodes according to their path costs form the root node. It can be
used to solve any graph/tree where the optimal cost is in demand. A uniform-cost search
algorithm is implemented by the priority queue. It gives maximum priority to the lowest
cumulative cost. Uniform cost search is equivalent to BFS algorithm if the path cost of all edges
is the same.

Advantages:

o Uniform cost search is optimal because at every state the path with the least cost is
chosen.

Disadvantages:

o It does not care about the number of steps involve in searching and only concerned about
path cost. Due to which this algorithm may be stuck in an infinite loop.

Example:
Completeness:

Uniform-cost search is complete, such as if there is a solution, UCS will find it.

Time Complexity:

Let C* is Cost of the optimal solution, and ε is each step to get closer to the goal node. Then
the number of steps is = C*/ε+1. Here we have taken +1, as we start from state 0 and end to
C*/ε.

Hence, the worst-case time complexity of Uniform-cost search isO(b1 + [C*/ε])/.

Space Complexity:

The same logic is for space complexity so, the worst-case space complexity of Uniform-cost
search is O(b1 + [C*/ε]).

Optimal:

Uniform-cost search is always optimal as it only selects a path with the lowest path cost.
5. Iterative deepeningdepth-first Search:

The iterative deepening algorithm is a combination of DFS and BFS algorithms. This search
algorithm finds out the best depth limit and does it by gradually increasing the limit until a goal
is found.

This algorithm performs depth-first search up to a certain "depth limit", and it keeps increasing
the depth limit after each iteration until the goal node is found.

This Search algorithm combines the benefits of Breadth-first search's fast search and depth-first
search's memory efficiency.

The iterative search algorithm is useful uninformed search when search space is large, and depth
of goal node is unknown.

Advantages:

o Itcombines the benefits of BFS and DFS search algorithm in terms of fast search and
memory efficiency.

Disadvantages:

o The main drawback of IDDFS is that it repeats all the work of the previous phase.

Example:

Following tree structure is showing the iterative deepening depth-first search. IDDFS algorithm
performs various iterations until it does not find the goal node. The iteration performed by the
algorithm is given as:
1'st Iteration-----> A
2'nd Iteration----> A, B, C
3'rd Iteration------>A, B, D, E, C, F, G
4'th Iteration------>A, B, D, H, I, E, C, F, K, G
In the fourth iteration, the algorithm will find the goal node.

Completeness:

This algorithm is complete is ifthe branching factor is finite.

Time Complexity:

Let's suppose b is the branching factor and depth is d then the worst-case time complexity
is O(bd).

Space Complexity:

The space complexity of IDDFS will be O(bd).

Optimal:

IDDFS algorithm is optimal if path cost is a non- decreasing function of the depth of the node.
6. Bidirectional Search Algorithm:

Bidirectional search algorithm runs two simultaneous searches, one form initial state called
as forward-search and other from goal node called as backward-search, to find the goal
node. Bidirectional search replaces one single search graph with two small subgraphs in
which one starts the search from an initial vertex and other starts from goal vertex. The
search stops when these two graphs intersect each other.

Bidirectional search can use search techniques such as BFS, DFS, DLS, etc.

Advantages:

o Bidirectional search is fast.

o Bidirectional search requires less memory

Disadvantages:

o Implementation of the bidirectional search tree is difficult.

o In bidirectional search, one should know the goal state in advance.

Example:

In the below search tree, bidirectional search algorithm is applied. This algorithm divides one
graph/tree into two sub-graphs. It starts traversing from node 1 in the forward direction and starts
from goal node 16 in the backward direction.

The algorithm terminates at node 9 where two searches meet.

Completeness: Bidirectional Search is complete if we use BFS in both searches.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of bidirectional search using BFS is O(bd).

Space Complexity: Space complexity of bidirectional search is O(bd).

Optimal: Bidirectional search is Optimal.

Next Topic Informed Search Algorithms in AI

 Informed Search Algorithms

So far we have talked about the uninformed search algorithms which looked through search
space for all possible solutions of the problem without having any additional knowledge about
search space. But informed search algorithm contains an array of knowledge such as how far we
are from the goal, path cost, how to reach to goal node, etc. This knowledge help agents to
explore less to the search space and find more efficiently the goal node.

The informed search algorithm is more useful for large search space. Informed search algorithm
uses the idea of heuristic, so it is also called Heuristic search.

Heuristics function: Heuristic is a function which is used in Informed Search, and it finds the
most promising path. It takes the current state of the agent as its input and produces the
estimation of how close agent is from the goal. The heuristic method, however, might not always
give the best solution, but it guaranteed to find a good solution in reasonable time. Heuristic
function estimates how close a state is to the goal. It is represented by h(n), and it calculates the
cost of an optimal path between the pair of states. The value of the heuristic function is always
positive.

Admissibility of the heuristic function is given as:

1. h(n) <= h*(n)

Here h(n) is heuristic cost, and h*(n) is the estimated cost. Hence heuristic cost should be
less than or equal to the estimated cost.

Pure Heuristic Search:

Pure heuristic search is the simplest form of heuristic search algorithms. It expands nodes based
on their heuristic value h(n). It maintains two lists, OPEN and CLOSED list. In the CLOSED
list, it places those nodes which have already expanded and in the OPEN list, it places nodes
which have yet not been expanded.

On each iteration, each node n with the lowest heuristic value is expanded and generates all its
successors and n is placed to the closed list. The algorithm continues unit a goal state is found.

In the informed search we will discuss two main algorithms which are given below:

o Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)

o A* Search Algorithm

1.) Best-first Search Algorithm (Greedy Search):

 Greedy best-first search algorithm always selects the path which appears best at that moment. It
is the combination of depth-first search and breadth-first search algorithms. It uses the heuristic
function and search. Best-first search allows us to take the advantages of both algorithms. With
the help of best-first search, at each step, we can choose the most promising node. In the best
first search algorithm, we expand the node which is closest to the goal node and the closest cost
is estimated by heuristic function, i.e.

1. f(n)= g(n).

Were, h(n)= estimated cost from node n to the goal.

The greedy best first algorithm is implemented by the priority queue.

Best first search algorithm:

o Step 1: Place the starting node into the OPEN list.

o Step 2: If the OPEN list is empty, Stop and return failure.
o Step 3: Remove the node n, from the OPEN list which has the lowest value of h(n), and
places it in the CLOSED list.
o Step 4: Expand the node n, and generate the successors of node n.
o Step 5: Check each successor of node n, and find whether any node is a goal node or not.
If any successor node is goal node, then return success and terminate the search, else
proceed to Step 6.
o Step 6: For each successor node, algorithm checks for evaluation function f(n), and then
check if the node has been in either OPEN or CLOSED list. If the node has not been in
both list, then add it to the OPEN list.
o Step 7: Return to Step 2.

Advantages:

o Best first search can switch between BFS and DFS by gaining the advantages of both the
algorithms.
o This algorithm is more efficient than BFS and DFS algorithms.

Disadvantages:

o It can behave as an unguided depth-first search in the worst case scenario.

o It can get stuck in a loop as DFS.
 o This algorithm is not optimal.

Example:

Consider the below search problem, and we will traverse it using greedy best-first search. At
each iteration, each node is expanded using evaluation function f(n)=h(n) , which is given in the
below table.

In this search example, we are using two lists which are OPEN and CLOSED Lists. Following
are the iteration for traversing the above example.
Expand the nodes of S and put in the CLOSED list

Initialization: Open [A, B], Closed [S]

Iteration 1: Open [A], Closed [S, B]

Iteration 2: Open [E, F, A], Closed [S, B]

: Open [E, A], Closed [S, B, F]

Iteration 3: Open [I, G, E, A], Closed [S, B, F]

: Open [I, E, A], Closed [S, B, F, G]

Hence the final solution path will be: S----> B----->F----> G

Time Complexity: The worst case time complexity of Greedy best first search is O(bm).

Space Complexity: The worst case space complexity of Greedy best first search is O(b m).
Where, m is the maximum depth of the search space.

Complete: Greedy best-first search is also incomplete, even if the given state space is finite.

Optimal: Greedy best first search algorithm is not optimal.

2.) A* Search Algorithm:

A* search is the most commonly known form of best-first search. It uses heuristic function h(n),
and cost to reach the node n from the start state g(n). It has combined features of UCS and
greedy best-first search, by which it solve the problem efficiently. A* search algorithm finds the
shortest path through the search space using the heuristic function. This search algorithm
expands less search tree and provides optimal result faster. A* algorithm is similar to UCS
except that it uses g(n)+h(n) instead of g(n).

In A* search algorithm, we use search heuristic as well as the cost to reach the node. Hence we
can combine both costs as following, and this sum is called as a fitness number.

At each point in the search space, only those node is expanded which have the lowest value of
f(n), and the algorithm terminates when the goal node is found.

Algorithm of A* search:

Step1: Place the starting node in the OPEN list.

Step 2: Check if the OPEN list is empty or not, if the list is empty then return failure and stops.

Step 3: Select the node from the OPEN list which has the smallest value of evaluation function
(g+h), if node n is goal node then return success and stop, otherwise

Step 4: Expand node n and generate all of its successors, and put n into the closed list. For each
successor n', check whether n' is already in the OPEN or CLOSED list, if not then compute
evaluation function for n' and place into Open list.

Step 5: Else if node n' is already in OPEN and CLOSED, then it should be attached to the back
pointer which reflects the lowest g(n') value.

Step 6: Return to Step 2.

Advantages:

o A* search algorithm is the best algorithm than other search algorithms.

o A* search algorithm is optimal and complete.
 o This algorithm can solve very complex problems.

Disadvantages:

o It does not always produce the shortest path as it mostly based on heuristics and
approximation.
o A* search algorithm has some complexity issues.
o The main drawback of A* is memory requirement as it keeps all generated nodes in the
memory, so it is not practical for various large-scale problems.

Example:

In this example, we will traverse the given graph using the A* algorithm. The heuristic value of
all states is given in the below table so we will calculate the f(n) of each state using the formula
f(n)= g(n) + h(n), where g(n) is the cost to reach any node from start state.
Here we will use OPEN and CLOSED list.

Solution:
Initialization: {(S, 5)}

Iteration1: {(S--> A, 4), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration2: {(S--> A-->C, 4), (S--> A-->B, 7), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration3: {(S--> A-->C--->G, 6), (S--> A-->C--->D, 11), (S--> A-->B, 7), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration 4 will give the final result, as S--->A--->C--->G it provides the optimal path with cost
6.

Points to remember:

o A* algorithm returns the path which occurred first, and it does not search for all
remaining paths.
o The efficiency of A* algorithm depends on the quality of heuristic.
o A* algorithm expands all nodes which satisfy the condition f(n)<="" li="">

Complete: A* algorithm is complete as long as:

o Branching factor is finite.

o Cost at every action is fixed.
Optimal: A* search algorithm is optimal if it follows below two conditions:

o Admissible: the first condition requires for optimality is that h(n) should be an
admissible heuristic for A* tree search. An admissible heuristic is optimistic in nature.
o Consistency: Second required condition is consistency for only A* graph-search.

If the heuristic function is admissible, then A* tree search will always find the least cost path.

Time Complexity: The time complexity of A* search algorithm depends on heuristic function,
and the number of nodes expanded is exponential to the depth of solution d. So the time
complexity is O(b^d), where b is the branching factor.

Space Complexity: The space complexity of A* search algorithm is O(b^d)

Next Topic Hill Climbing Algorithm in AI

Hill Climbing Algorithm in Artificial Intelligence

o Hill climbing algorithm is a local search algorithm which continuously moves in the
direction of increasing elevation/value to find the peak of the mountain or best
solution to the problem. It terminates when it reaches a peak value where no
neighbor has a higher value.
o Hill climbing algorithm is a technique which is used for optimizing the
mathematical problems. One of the widely discussed examples of Hill climbing
algorithm is Traveling-salesman Problem in which we need to minimize the distance
traveled by the salesman.
o It is also called greedy local search as it only looks to its good immediate neighbor
state and not beyond that.
o A node of hill climbing algorithm has two components which are state and value.
o Hill Climbing is mostly used when a good heuristic is available.
o In this algorithm, we don't need to maintain and handle the search tree or graph as it
only keeps a single current state.

Features of Hill Climbing:

Following are some main features of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

o Generate and Test variant: Hill Climbing is the variant of Generate and Test
method. The Generate and Test method produce feedback which helps to decide
which direction to move in the search space.
o Greedy approach: Hill-climbing algorithm search moves in the direction which
optimizes the cost.
o No backtracking: It does not backtrack the search space, as it does not remember
the previous states.

State-space Diagram for Hill Climbing:

The state-space landscape is a graphical representation of the hill-climbing algorithm which

is showing a graph between various states of algorithm and Objective function/Cost.

On Y-axis we have taken the function which can be an objective function or cost function,
and state-space on the x-axis. If the function on Y-axis is cost then, the goal of search is to
find the global minimum and local minimum. If the function of Y-axis is Objective
function, then the goal of the search is to find the global maximum and local maximum.

Different regions in the state space landscape:

Local Maximum: Local maximum is a state which is better than its neighbor states, but
there is also another state which is higher than it.

Global Maximum: Global maximum is the best possible state of state space landscape. It
has the highest value of objective function.

Current state: It is a state in a landscape diagram where an agent is currently present.

Flat local maximum: It is a flat space in the landscape where all the neighbor states of
current states have the same value.

Shoulder: It is a plateau region which has an uphill edge.

Types of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

o Simple hill Climbing:
o Steepest-Ascent hill-climbing:
o Stochastic hill Climbing:

1. Simple Hill Climbing:

Simple hill climbing is the simplest way to implement a hill climbing algorithm. It only
evaluates the neighbor node state at a time and selects the first one which optimizes
current cost and set it as a current state. It only checks it's one successor state, and if it
finds better than the current state, then move else be in the same state. This algorithm has
the following features:

o Less time consuming

o Less optimal solution and the solution is not guaranteed

Algorithm for Simple Hill Climbing:

o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return success and Stop.
o Step 2: Loop Until a solution is found or there is no new operator left to apply.
o Step 3: Select and apply an operator to the current state.
o Step 4: Check new state:
1. If it is goal state, then return success and quit.
2. Else if it is better than the current state then assign new state as a current
state.
3. Else if not better than the current state, then return to step2.
o Step 5: Exit.

2. Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:

The steepest-Ascent algorithm is a variation of simple hill climbing algorithm. This

algorithm examines all the neighboring nodes of the current state and selects one neighbor
node which is closest to the goal state. This algorithm consumes more time as it searches for
multiple neighbors

Algorithm for Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:

o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return success and stop, else
make current state as initial state.
o Step 2: Loop until a solution is found or the current state does not change.
1. Let SUCC be a state such that any successor of the current state will be
better than it.
2. For each operator that applies to the current state:
 I. Apply the new operator and generate a new state.
II. Evaluate the new state.
III. If it is goal state, then return it and quit, else compare it to the SUCC.
IV. If it is better than SUCC, then set new state as SUCC.
V. If the SUCC is better than the current state, then set current state to
SUCC.
Step 5: Exit.

3. Stochastic hill climbing:

Stochastic hill climbing does not examine for all its neighbor before moving. Rather, this
search algorithm selects one neighbor node at random and decides whether to choose it as a
current state or examine another state.

Problems in Hill Climbing Algorithm:

1. Local Maximum: A local maximum is a peak state in the landscape which is better than
each of its neighboring states, but there is another state also present which is higher than the
local maximum.

Solution: Backtracking technique can be a solution of the local maximum in state space
landscape. Create a list of the promising path so that the algorithm can backtrack the search
space and explore other paths as well.

2. Plateau: A plateau is the flat area of the search space in which all the neighbor states of
the current state contains the same value, because of this algorithm does not find any best
direction to move. A hill-climbing search might be lost in the plateau area.

Solution: The solution for the plateau is to take big steps or very little steps while
searching, to solve the problem. Randomly select a state which is far away from the current
state so it is possible that the algorithm could find non-plateau region.

3. Ridges: A ridge is a special form of the local maximum. It has an area which is higher
than its surrounding areas, but itself has a slope, and cannot be reached in a single move.

Solution: With the use of bidirectional search, or by moving in different directions, we can
improve this problem.

Simulated Annealing:

A hill-climbing algorithm which never makes a move towards a lower value guaranteed to
be incomplete because it can get stuck on a local maximum. And if algorithm applies a
random walk, by moving a successor, then it may complete but not efficient. Simulated
Annealing is an algorithm which yields both efficiency and completeness.

In mechanical term Annealing is a process of hardening a metal or glass to a high

temperature then cooling gradually, so this allows the metal to reach a low-energy
crystalline state. The same process is used in simulated annealing in which the algorithm
picks a random move, instead of picking the best move. If the random move improves the
state, then it follows the same path. Otherwise, the algorithm follows the path which has a
probability of less than 1 or it moves downhill and chooses another path.

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