Assignment

Contents:

  • Overview
  • Internet Requirements
  • Practice Problems
  • Problems to be Submitted
  • Extra Credit

    • Overview

     Topic: Artificial Intelligence
    Related Reading: Ch. 13 and notes (skip 13.2, 13.6)
    Due:

    Internet Requirements

     You will not need an Internet connection for completing the assignment, other than for submission.

    Practice Problems

  • Exercise 4 of Ch. 13 (p. 426); answer in back of text

  • Exercise 22 of Ch. 13 (p. 427); answer in back of text

  • Exercise 32 of Ch. 13 (p. 427); answer in back of text

  • Exercise 42 of Ch. 13 (p. 428); answer in back of text

  • Exercise 45 of Ch. 13 (p. 428); answer in back of text

    • Problems to be Submitted (20 points)

    1. (5 points)
      Answer Thought Question #1 of Ch. 13 (p. 429)

    2. (5 points)
      Define some variables and some rules that might be in an expert system used in choosing what clothes to wear on a given day.

    3. (10 points)
      Many statements in a natural language, such as English, contain ambiguity for a variety of reasons. As humans, we can often (though not always) distinguish between possible meanings. Resolving such ambiguities is a great challenge for software.

      The textbook and the lecture notes discuss several sources of ambiguity, giving many examples of such ambiguities.

      For each of the five types of ambiguity below we want you to do the following.

    4. Create your own example of an English statement which has such an ambiguity.
      Your example must be different from the examples given in the text book or lecture notes.

    5. Justify your answer, explaining the ambiguity, and giving two or more possible interpretations of your statement. (Ideally, several of the interpretations might be 'reasonable' as opposed to one obvious interpretation and one senseless interpretation)

      1. Lexical ambiguity
      2. Syntactic ambiguity
      3. Referential ambiguity
      4. The need for rules of conversation
      5. The need for real-world, topical knowledge
    Overall, please type your answers to all of the problems in a single document to be submitted electronically. Please see details about the submission process.

    Extra Credit (2 points)

     Figure 13.4 of the text and the corresponding discussion involve a variant of the game of Nim. Interestingly, the text book never explicitly stated the most important conclusions. Assuming that both players use optimal strategies, who will win the game, Player 1 or Player 2? Explain why.

    By the way, the text explained that they used a very simplified version of the game as an example. If you would like, you may play the computer in a more interesting version of the game Nim. Let me know if you are able to beat the computer. I still haven't.

    Last modified: 14 November 2002