1.

Define in your own words: (a) intelligence, (b) artificial intelligence, (c) agent, (d)
rationality, (e) logical reasoning.
Sol: Here is my attempt at defining those terms in my own words:

(a) Intelligence - The ability to acquire knowledge and skills and apply them to solve problems
or achieve goals. This can include learning, reasoning, planning, creativity, and decision making.

(b) Artificial intelligence - Computer systems or machines that are designed to exhibit qualities
of intelligence similar to human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving,
perception, and decision making. AI systems are programmed to demonstrate these abilities to
accomplish tasks without explicit human input.

(c) Agent - An autonomous entity that perceives and acts upon an environment to achieve one or
more goals. Agents can include AI systems, robots, or software programs that sense conditions
and take actions based on those inputs.

(d) Rationality - The ability of an intelligent agent, whether human or artificial, to reason
correctly and act in a way consistent with achieving its goals to the best of its knowledge. A
rational agent should select actions aligned with its objectives and beliefs based on logic.

(e) Logical reasoning - The process of forming conclusions and making decisions through
sound arguments based on premises, evidence and logical connections rather than emotional
responses. Using valid lines of reasoning and inference to move from existing facts and beliefs to
reach new supported beliefs.

2. Are reflex actions (such as flinching from a hot stove) rational? Are they intelligent?
Sol: Yes, they are rational, because slower, deliberative actions would tend to result in more
damage to the hand. If “intelligent” means “applying knowledge” or “using thought and
reasoning” then it does not require intelligence to make a reflex action.

3.To what extent are the following computer systems instances of artificial intelligence:
A. Supermarket barcode scanners.
B. Web search engines.
C. Voice-activated telephone menus.
D. Internet routing algorithms that respond dynamically to the state of the network.
Sol:
(A) Although bar code scanning is in a sense computer vision, these are not AI systems. The
problem of reading a barcode is an extremely limited and artificial form of visual interpretation,
and it has been carefully designed to be as simple as possible, given the hardware

(B) Web search engines - Weak AI. Search engines like Google employ techniques like machine
learning to continuously improve performance at the narrow task of matching user queries to
relevant web pages. So they exhibit some qualities of intelligent systems.

(C) Voice-activated telephone menus - Narrow AI. Voice command interfaces have programmed
responses to recognize and respond to human speech patterns. They have natural language
processing capabilities tuned for the specific domain of guiding users through menus, which
qualifies as narrow or weak AI.

(D) Internet routing algorithms - Weak AI. The algorithms that dynamically adjust network
traffic routing online based on conditions exhibit some traits of intelligence, including real-time
problem solving and optimization abilities. But they are still focused on a narrow functionality
without generalized intelligence. Overall I would categorize them as weak AI systems.

4. Is AI a science, or is it engineering? Or neither or both? Explain. Sol:

AI is generally considered both a science and a form of engineering:

Science:
- AI relies heavily on mathematics, statistics, probability, optimization algorithms, and other
scientific disciplines to study and characterize intelligent systems.
- There is a great deal of scientific research investigating learning algorithms, neural networks,
natural language processing, robotics, and other topics that further scientific understanding of
intelligent agents.
- AI researchers conduct experiments, gather data, test hypotheses, and formulate theories about
intelligence and cognition.

Engineering:
- The goal of AI is often to build intelligent systems capable of assisting human users or
automating complex tasks. This application focus aligns it with engineering disciplines.
- AI involves designing and architecting systems to display intelligent behavior, learning
capabilities, perception, planning, etc. Researchers must engineer systems to solve problems.
- There is a heavy emphasis on experimental prototyping and development iterations in AI, just
as in other engineering fields.

In summary, AI qualifies as a scientific field in its study of intelligence through rigorous models
and experiments. It also qualifies as a form of engineering in its goal of building capable
systems to match or surpass human-level cognition in certain domains. It combines scientific
study with practical engineering application. So most experts consider artificial intelligence to be
both a branch of science and a field of engineering.
5. “Surely computers cannot be intelligent—they can do only what their programmers tell
them.” Is the latter statement T, and does it imply the former?

Sol:
No, the latter statement is not entirely T, and it does not imply the former statement that
computers cannot be intelligent. The statement that computers can only do what their
programmers tell them to do is an oversimplification. While a computer's initial programming
sets rules and capabilities, modern AI systems are capable of machine learning. This allows them
to adapt and change over time based on new data and experiences without needing explicit
reprogramming.

For example, deep learning algorithms can construct neural networks and refine connection
weights in response to training datasets. The programmers do not directly tell the system how to
organize itself or what features to identify in the data. The computer learns on its own based on
patterns and correlations. This ability to learn goes beyond explicit programming directives.
Similarly, techniques like genetic algorithms and reinforcement learning allow AI agents to
develop novel strategies, behaviors and knowledge through dynamic processes like simulated
evolution. So they are not tightly constrained by a programmer's predefined commands.

6.Examine the AI literature to discover whether the following tasks can currently be
solved by computers:
a. Playing a decent game of table tennis (Ping-Pong).
b. Driving in the center of Cairo, Egypt.
c. Driving in Victorville, California.
d. Buying a week’s worth of groceries at the market.
e. Buying a week’s worth of groceries on the Web.
f. Playing a decent game of bridge at a competitive level.
g. Discovering and proving new mathematical theorems.
h. Writing an intentionally funny story.
i. Giving competent legal advice in a specialized area of law.
j. Translating spoken English into spoken Swedish in real time.
k. Performing a complex surgical operation.
For the currently infeasible tasks, try to find out what the difficulties are and predict when, if
ever, they will be overcome.

Sol:
a. Playing table tennis - Yes. AI systems can play table tennis at amateur skill levels. Issues to
reach professional competitive levels.

b. Driving in Cairo - No. Extremely chaotic conditions with unpredictable human behaviors
exceed reliable automated driving currently. Issues interpreting complex environments.

c. Driving in Victorville - Yes. Simple highway driving with few pedestrians in low-density
areas can be automated with today's sensors and algorithms. Still has limitations.
 d. Buying groceries at market - No. Requires mobility plus object and
activity recognition levels not yet reliable. Interpreting human conversations
also an issue. Maybe possible in 10-15 years.

e. Buying groceries online - Yes. Web commerce purchasing with structured

interfaces is highly automatable with today's technology.

f. Playing competitive bridge - No. Game has huge state space and requires
modeling psychological plays. Beyond capabilities today but core reasoning
gaps could close in 5-10 years.

g. Proving mathematical theorems - No. Limited success identifying elegant

proofs or discovering wholly novel theorems. Logical reasoning lags human
mathematicians. Achievable once knowledge representation matures.

h. Writing funny stories - No. Understanding and generating humor very

difficult for AI. Possible with contextual models and creativity algorithms.
10+ year timeline.

i. Legal advice in specialty area - Partial. Narrow advice bots feasible but
cannot match human legal judgement. Gaps in open-domain dialogue,
empathy, applying principles to specifics.

j. English to Swedish translation - Partial success for simple phrases but

lacks fluency. Dual-language modelling still developing over next 3-5 years.

k. Complex surgery - No. State-of-the-art robotics lacks full autonomy and

judgement needed for open surgical procedures. At least 10-15 years away.

7. For each of the following activities, give a PEAS description of the task environment and
characterize it in terms of the properties listed.
• Playing soccer.
• Exploring the subsurface oceans of Titan.
• Shopping for used AI books on the Internet.
• Playing a tennis match.
• Practicing tennis against a wall.
• Performing a high jump.
• Knitting a sweater.
• Bidding on an item at an auction
Sol:

Playing soccer:

Performance Measure: Number of goals scored, successful passes, tackles, etc.

Environment: Soccer field, with players, referees, goalposts, ball, etc.
Actuators: Legs for running and kicking, arms for throwing in, head for heading the ball.
Sensors: Eyes for seeing the field, feet for feeling the ball, ears for hearing teammates and
opponents

Exploring the subsurface oceans of Titan:

Performance Measure: Amount of new discoveries made, samples collected, etc.

Environment: Subsurface oceans of Titan, potentially with unknown life forms, geological
features, etc.
Actuators: Robotic probes, sampling equipment, cameras, etc.
Sensors: Cameras, sensors for temperature, pressure, chemical composition, etc.

Shopping for used AI books on the Internet:

Performance Measure: Number of books purchased, satisfaction with purchases, etc.

Environment: Online marketplace or bookstore website with listings of AI books.
Actuators: Mouse or touchpad for clicking, typing for searches and input.
Sensors: Eyes for reading book descriptions, reviews, prices, etc.

Playing a tennis match:

Performance Measure: Number of points won, games won, match won, etc.
Environment: Tennis court with net, opponents, tennis rackets, balls.
Actuators: Arms for swinging the racket, legs for moving around the court.
Sensors: Eyes for tracking the ball, ears for hearing opponent's shots.

Practicing tennis against a wall:

Performance Measure: Number of successful hits, improvement in technique, etc.

Environment: Tennis court with a wall as the opponent.
Actuators: Tennis racket for hitting the ball against the wall.
Sensors: Eyes for tracking the ball's rebound.

Performing a high jump:

Performance Measure: Height of the jump achieved, technique used, etc.

Environment: Track and field area with high jump equipment.
Actuators: Legs for jumping.
Sensors: Eyes for judging distance and height.
Knitting a sweater:

Performance Measure: Completion of the sweater, quality of knitting work, etc.

Environment: Workspace with knitting supplies like yarn, needles, pattern.
Actuators: Hands for knitting.
Sensors: Touch and sight for feeling yarn tension, checking pattern.

Bidding on an item at an auction:

Performance Measure: Winning bids on desired items, staying within budget, etc.
Environment: Online auction platform or physical auction house with auctioneer.
Actuators: Mouse or touchpad for placing bids.
Sensors: Eyes for monitoring bids, ears for hearing auction updates.

8. Your goal is to navigate a robot out of a maze. The robot starts in the center of the maze
facing north. You can turn the robot to face north, east, south, or west. You can direct the
robot to move forward a certain distance, although it will stop before hitting a wall.

a. Formulate this problem. How large is the state space?

To formulate the problem we should start off by setting up a coordinate system with x and y
vertices, so start at center of a “maze” and set it as (0,0). The entire maze can be a square of (-
1,1) to (1,1).
The way to test this will be as long as the x and y are greater than 1 to the current location.
Successor function can be moving forward any amount of distance and the cost function can be
the total distance moved.
The state space can be infinite due to robot position as infinite.

b. In navigating a maze, the only place we need to turn is at the intersection of two or
more corridors. Reformulate this problem using this observation. How large is the state
space now?
If the navigation is going to change to only needing turn at intersection of two or more corridors,
we need to have an exit node at the end of each corridor. The initial state will now be facing
north in the center of the maze as before. The test will be to get to an exit node. The successor
function is to move past the intersection if there is one in front of us, and the cost function is just
the total distance moved as before. The state space will have changed due to the number if
intersections and that can be 4, therefore the state space is now 4N with N being the number of
intersections.

c. From each point in the maze, we can move in any of the four directions until we reach a
turning point, and this is the only action we need to do. Reformulate the problem using
these actions. Do we need to keep track of the robot’s orientation now?
Changing the navigation to only being able to move in any four directions till we reach the wall
is what this is asking for. To do this, the initial state will be at the center of the maze (direction
won’t matter due to the fact that we’re just looking to reach a wall). The test will be to an exit
node once again, and the successor function will be to move to the next intersection (lets say you
originally got to the north wall, now we need to go to either the east,west, or south wall). The
total cost function is the total distance moved as before.

d. In our initial description of the problem we already abstracted from the real world,
restricting actions and removing details. List three such simplifications we made.

Three simplifications that we could have made for this are the following:
1) We assumed that the robot can only face 4 directions, what if it could move in other ways?
2) We ignored the other variables about the world including the temperature, wind that may
move the robot and change orientation, and other natural causes.
3) We also ignored possibility of other robots in the same area or other items in the way of the
robot moving in its “space”.

9.Suppose two friends live in different cities on a map, such as the Romania map shown
in Figure 3.2. On every turn, we can simultaneously move each friend to a neighboring city
on the map. The amount of time needed to move from city i to neighbor j is equal to the
road
distance d(i, j) between the cities, but on each turn the friend that arrives first must wait
until
the other one arrives (and calls the first on his/her cell phone) before the next turn can
begin
We want the two friends to meet as quickly as possible.

a. Write a detailed formulation for this search problem. (You will find it helpful to define
some formal notation here.
We can start the search problem by defining the state space. States are all city pairs (i,j). The
successor function would be the successors of (I,j) lets call them, (x,y), and adjacent pairs (x,i),
(y,j). The goal will be to be at some (i,i) such that both people are in the exact same location
together. The cost function in this will be to going from (i,j) to (x,y).

b. Let D(i, j) be the straight-line distance between cities i and j. Which of the following
heuristic functions are admissible? (i) D(i, j); (ii) 2 ・ D(i, j); (iii) D(i, j)/2.
The function that’s admissible would be function (iii). This is because this way it is evenly
spread out between each friend.

c. Are there completely connected maps for which no solution exists?

Yes it is possible to have connected maps for which no solution exists. This is due to a
possibility such as if the two friends start at an odd number of steps apart, they will never be
together in the same spot.

d. Are there maps in which all solutions require one friend to visit the same city twice?
This is not a possibility due to you finding a path in which the two friends meet together. It is not
possible to have them double back and go to the same city twice if you are trying to find the most
efficient way in which two people can meet.
10.Decide whether each of the following sentences is valid, unsatisfiable, or neither. Verify
your decisions using truth tables .

a. Smoke ⇒ Smoke
b. Smoke ⇒ Fire
c. (Smoke⇒ Fire)⇒(¬Smoke ⇒ ¬Fire)
d. Smoke V Fire V ¬Fire
e. ((Smoke Heat) ⇒ Fire) ↔ ((Smoke ⇒ Fire) V (Heat ⇒ Fire))
f. (Smoke ⇒ Fire) ⇒ ((Smoke ^ Heat) ⇒ Fire)
g. Big V Dumb V (Big ⇒ Dumb).

Sol:

a.

Smoke Smoke Smoke ⇒ Smoke

T T T
F F T

This is Valid.

b.

Smoke Fire Smoke ⇒ Fire

T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T

This is Neither.

c.

Smoke Fire ¬Smoke ¬Fire Smoke ⇒ ¬Smoke ⇒ (Smoke ⇒ Fire) ⇒ (¬Smoke ⇒

Fire ¬Fire ¬Fire)
T T F F T T T
T F F T F F T
F T T F T F F
F F T T T T T

This sentence is neither

d.

Smoke Fire ¬Fire Smoke V Fire V ¬Fire

T T F T
T F T T
F T F T
F F T T

This sentence is valid

e.

Smoke Heat Fire Smoke ^ Smoke ⇒ Heat ⇒ (Smoke (Smoke ⇒ Fire) ↔

Heat Fire Fire Heat) ⇒ Fire V (Heat ⇒ Fire)
T T T T T T T T T
T T F T T F F T F
T F T F T T T T T
T F F F T T F T F
F T T F T T T T T
F T F F T T F T T
F F T F T T T T T
F F F F T T T T T

This sentence is valid

f.

Smoke Heat Fire Smoke ⇒ Smoke ^ (Smoke ⇒ Fire) ⇒ ((Smoke ^ Heat) ⇒

Fire Heat Fire)
T T T T T T
T T F T T F
T F T T F T
T F F T F T
F T T T F T
F T F T F T
F F T T F T
F F F T F T

This sentence is valid

g.

Big Dumb Big ⇒ Dumb Big V Dumb V (Big ⇒ Dumb)

T T T T
T F F F
F T T T
F F T T

This statement is valid.