UNIVERSITY OF EMBU

2016/2017 ACADEMIC YEAR

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE

CSC 215: INTRODUCTION TO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Marking Scheme
CAT 2 =

Answer all Questions

1. Explain the difference between knowledge and knowledge representation – 2 Marks

• Knowledge is a description of the world It determines a systems competence by what it knows
• Representation is the way knowledge is encoded. It defines a system’s performance in doing
something

2. Define AI based on behavior of intelligent beings – 2 Marks

• AI is the study of how to make computers do things that people are better at
• AI is a branch of computer science that is concerned with the automation of intelligent behavior

3. Based on advances in AI, we have driverless cars. Relate that application of AI to any other 2
disciplines, clearly explaining what is borrowed from those disciplines to result in intelligent
behavior of the driverless cars – 4 Marks

Driverless cars – related disciplines (what can be borrowed/informs the inventions)

Discipline Feature
Mathematics Formal representation, computations, etc
Probability / statistics Modeling uncertainty, learning from data/facts
Computer engineering Design and building of fact processing units
Economics Decision theories, rational actions

4. Compare and contrast goal based agents and utility based agents – 4 Marks

Whereas both are guided by a goal (how it will be like if action is taken), the goal based agents will seek
to carry out the actions that lead to the achievement of goal but the utility based agents go further to be
informed by an evaluation of how happy (as a measure of the acceptability of the goal) the agent will be
after achievement of the goal

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 5. One of the models of knowledge is the Bellinger (1980) model. Illustrate the concepts of
connectedness and understanding based on this model – 4 Marks

The Bellinger model states that as the degree of connectedness and understanding increases, we
progress from data through information and knowledge to wisdom

6. In class we discussed the PEAS (Performance Measure, Environment, Actuators and Sensors) of
an intelligent machine. Name and describe any three possible nature of environments in which
intelligent agents may operate in. 6 Marks

• Fully Observable vs. Partially Observable

- task environment is effectively fully observable if the sensors detect all aspects that are relevant to the choice of
action; relevance, in turn, depends on the performance measure.
- An environment might be partially observable because of noisy and inaccurate sensors or because parts of the
state are simply missing from the sensor data
• 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.
• 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. Crucially, the next episode does not depend on the
actions taken in previous episodes
- In sequential environments, on the other hand, the current decision could affect all future decisions. Chess and
taxi driving arc sequential
• 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

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 - If the environment itself does not change with the passage of time but the agent's performance score does,
then we say the environment is semidynamic. Chess, when played with a clock, is semidynamic. Crossword
puzzles are static.
• Discrete vs. Continuous
- The discrete/continuous distinction applies to the state of the environment, to the way time is handled, and to
the percepts and actions of the agent. The chess environment has a finite number of distinct states (excluding
the clock), Chess also has a discrete set of percepts and actions. 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 and do so smoothly over time. Taxi-driving actions are also continuous (steering angles,
etc.)
• Single agent vs. Multi-agent
- Is it a single entity accomplishing a task or it is that multiple agents are involved in accomplishing a task? E.g.
solving a crossword puzzle by itself is clearly in a single-agent environment, whereas an agent playing chess is
not only in a two-agent environment but actually a competitive multi agent environment.

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 7. In natural language processing, the following steps are involved. Explain briefly what is involved
in any two [4 Marks]
a. Morphological analysis
b. Syntactic analysis
c. Semantic analysis
d. Pragmatic analysis
e. Discourse analysis

8. Among the possible models and mechanisms of Knowledge representation, we have the use of
logic, rules, frames and semantic nets. Give brief descriptions of how logic and rules can be used
to represent knowledge [4 Marks]

Logic is a language for reasoning, a collection of rules used while doing logical reasoning. Facts are
represented using explicit symbols and semantics to form sentences(knowledge) and defined ways to
form new sentences

Rules are used as IF THEN relationships such that either possession or use of knowledge is enabled:
IF premise THEN condition :: possession of knowledge
IF condition THEN action :: use of knowledge

END

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