Artificial Intelligence

Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents

Michael Scherger
Department of Computer Science
Kent State University

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 1

 Agents and Environments
• An Agent is anything
Agent
that can be viewed as
Sensors
perceiving its
Percepts

environment

Environment
through sensors and ?
acting upon that
environment through
actuators Actuators Actions

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 2

 Agents and Environments
• Percept – the agent’s perceptual inputs
– percept sequence is a sequence of everything the
agent has ever perceived

• Agent Function – describes the agent’s behavior

– Maps any given percept sequence to an action
– f : P* -> A

• Agent Program – an implementation of an agent

function for an artificial agent
January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 3
 Agents and Environments
• Example: Vacuum Cleaner
World
– Two locations: squares A and B
– Perceives what square it is in A B
– Perceives if there is dirt in the
current square
– Actions
• move left
• move right
• suck up the dirt
• do nothing

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 4

 Agents and Environments
• Agent Function: Percept Sequence Action

Vacuum Cleaner [A, Clean] Right

World
[A, Dirty] Suck
– If the current square is
dirty, then suck, [B, Clean] Left
otherwise move to the
other square [B, Dirty] Suck

[A, Clean], [A, Clean] Right

[A, Clean], [A, Dirty] Suck

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 5

 Agents and Environments
• But what is the right way to fill out the table?
– is the agent
• good or bad
• intelligent or stupid
– can it be implemented in a small program?

Function Reflex-Vacuum-Agent([location, status]) return an action

if status == Dirty then return Suck
else if location = A then return Right
else if location = B then return Left

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 6

 Good Behavior and Rationality
• Rational Agent – an agent that does the
“right” thing
– Every entry in the table for the agent function
is filled out correctly
– Doing the right thing is better than doing the
wrong thing
• What does it mean to do the right thing?

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 7

 Good Behavior and Rationality
• Performance Measure
– A scoring function for evaluating the environment
space

• Rational Agent – for each possible percept

sequence, a rational agent should select an
action that is expected to maximize its
performance measure, given the evidence
provided by the percept sequence and what ever
built-in knowledge the agent has.
January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 8
 Good Behavior and Rationality
• Rational != omniscient
• Rational != clairvoyant
• Rational != successful

• Rational -> exploration, learning,

autonomy

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 9

 The Nature of Environments
• Task environments
– The “problems” to which a rational agent is
the “solution”

• PEAS
– Performance
– Environment
– Actuators
– Sensors
January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 10
 The Nature of Environments
• Properties of task environments
– Fully Observable vs. Partially Observable
– Deterministic vs. Stochastic
– Episodic vs. Sequential
– Static vs. Dynamic
– Discrete vs. Continuous
– Single agent vs. Multi-agent

• The real world is partially observable, stochastic,

sequential, dynamic, continuous, multi-agent

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 11

 The Nature of Environments
• Examples
– Solitaire
– Backgammon
– Automated Taxi
– Mars Rover

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 12

 The Structure of Agents
• Agent = Architecture + Program

• Basic algorithm for a rational agent

– While (true) do
• Get percept from sensors into memory
• Determine best action based on memory
• Record action in memory
• Perform action

• Most AI programs are a variation of this theme

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 13
 The Structure of Agents
• Table Driven Agent

function Table-Driven-Agent (percept) return action

static: percepts, a sequence, initially empty
table, a table of actions, indexed by
percept sequences, initially fully
specified

append percept to the end of the table

action <- LOOKUP( percept, table )
return action

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 14

 The Structure of Agents
Simple Reflex Agent

What the world Sensors Percepts

is like now

Environment
Condition-Action What action I
Rules should do now Actuators Actions

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 15

 The Structure of Agents
• Simple Reflex Agent

function Simple-Reflex-Agent (percept) return action

static: rules, a set of condition-action rules

state <- INTERPRET-INPUT( percept )

rule <- RULE-MATCH( state, rules )
action <- RULE-ACTION[ rule ]
return action

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 16

 The Structure of Agents
Reflex Agent With State

What the world Sensors Percepts

State is like now

Environment
How the world evolves

What my actions do

Condition-Action What action I

Rules should do now Actuators Actions

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 17

 The Structure of Agents
• Reflex Agent With State

function Reflex-Agent-With-State (percept) return action

static: state, a description of the current world state
rules, a set of condition-action rules
action, the most recent action, initially none

state <- UPDATE-STATE( state, action, percept )

rule <- RULE-MATCH( state, rules )
action <- RULE-ACTION[ rule ]
return action

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 18

 The Structure of Agents
Goal Based Agent

What the world Sensors Percepts

State is like now

Environment
How the world evolves

What my actions do
What it will be like
if I do action A

What action I
Goals Actuators
should do now Actions

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 19

 The Structure of Agents
Utility Based Agent

What the world Sensors Percepts

State is like now

Environment
How the world evolves
What it will be like
What my actions do if I do action A

How happy I will be

Utility
in such a state

What action I
should do now Actuators Actions

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 20

 The Structure of Agents
Learning Based Agent

Critic Sensors Percepts

(external
performance
standard)

Environment
feedback
changes
Learning Performance
Element Element
knowledge
learning
goals
Actuators Actions
Problem
Generator

January 11, 2006 AI: Chapter 2: Intelligent Agents 21