2. 1 BASIC ROBLEM SOLVING METHODS Many of the problems that fall within the purview of artificial intelligence are too complex to be solvable by direct techniques. They must be attacked by appropriate search methods armed with whatever direct techniques are available to guide the search.

3. 2 These methods are all varieties of heuristic search. They can be described independently of any particular task or problem domain.

4. 3 Every search process can be viewed as a traversal of a directed graph in which each node represents a problem state and each arc represents a relationship between the states represented by the nodes it connects.

5. 4 A Water jug problem You are given two jugs, a 4-gallon one and a 3-gallon one. Neither has any measuring markers on it. There is a pump that can be used to fill the jugs with water. How can you get exactly 2 gallons of water into the 4-gallon jug ?

6. 5 The state space : the set of ordered pairs of integers (x, y) x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 (the number of gallons in the 4-gallon jug) y = 0, 1, 2, 3(the number of gallons in the 3- gallon jug). The start state is (0, 0) The goal state is (2, n).

7. 6 Production rules 1. (X, Y | X< 4)  (4, Y) Fill the 4-gallon jug 2. (X, Y | Y< 3)  (X, 3) Fill the 3-gallon jug 3. (X, Y | X > 0)  (X - D, Y) Pour some water out of the 4-gallon jug 4. (X, Y | Y > 0)  (X, Y - D) Pour some water out of the 3-gallon jug 5. (X, Y | X > 0)  (0, Y) Empty the 4-gallon jug on the ground

8. 7 6. (X, Y | Y > 0)  (X, 0) Empty the 3-gallon jug on the ground 7. (X, Y | X + Y > = 4  Y > 0)  (4, Y – (4 - X)) Pour water from the 3-gallon jug into the 4-gallon jug until the 4-gallon jug is full 8. (X, Y | X + Y > = 3  X > 0)  (X – (3 – Y), 3) Pour water from the 4-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug until the 3-gallon jug is full 9. (X, Y | X + Y 0)  (X + Y, 0) Pour all the water from the 3-gallon jug into the 4-gallon jug. 10. (X, Y | X + Y 0)  (0, X + Y) Pour all the water from the 4-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug.

9. 8 One solution Gallons Gallons Rule in 4-gallon jug in 3-gallon jug 002002 039039 302302 337337 425425 029029 2020

10. 9 Part of a Search Graph for the Water Jug Problem (00) 4,0)( (0,3) (1,3)3,0(4,3)

11. 10 The arcs have not been labeled in the figure, but they correspond to the appropriate water-pouring operations. The search process must find a path through the graph, starting at an initial state and ending in one or more final states.

12. 11 Five important issues that arise in all search techniques: The direction in which to conduct the search The topology of the search process How each node of the search process will be represented Selecting applicable rules Using a heuristic function to guide the search

13. 12 FORWARD VERSUS BACKWARD REASONING The object of a search procedure is to discover a path through a problem space from an initial configuration to a goal state. There are two directions in which such a search could proceed: Forward, from the start states Backward, from the goal states

14. 13 Example: solving a particular instance of the 8-puzzle Assume the areas of the tray are numbered 12 3 456 7 89

15. 14 Here are the rules: Square i empty and Square i+1 contains tile n  Square i+1 empty and Square i contains tile n Square i empty and Square i+3 contains tile n  Square i+3 empty and Square i contains tile n Square i+1 empty and Square i contains tile n  Square i empty and Square i+1 contains tile n

16. 15 Start 28 3 1 6 4 7 5

17. 16 Goal 1 23 4 5 67 8

18. 17 Reason forward from the initial states. Start with the initial configuration(s) at the root of the tree. Generate the next level of the tree by finding all the rules whose left sides match the root node, and use their right sides to create the new configurations. Generate the next level by taking each node generated at the previous level and applying to it all of the rules whose left sides match it. Continue until a configuration that matches the goal state is generated. Two ways to solve the puzzle:

19. 18 Reason backward from the goal states. Starting with the goal configuration(s) at the root of the tree. Generate the next level of the tree by finding all the rules whose right sides match the root node. Use the left sides of the rules to generate the nodes at this second level of the tree. Generate the next level of the tree by taking each node at the previous level and finding all the rules whose right sides match it. Then use the corresponding left sides to generate the new nodes. Continue until a node that matches the initial state is generated.

20. 19 Three factors influence the question of whether it is better to reason forward or backward: Are there more possible start states or goal states? We would like to move from the smaller set of states to the larger In which direction is the branching factor greater? We would like to proceed in the direction with the lower branching factor. Will the program be asked to justify its reasoning process to a user? If so, it is important to proceed in the direction that corresponds more closely with the way the user will think.

21. 20 Examples It seems easier to drive from an unfamiliar place home than from home to an unfamiliar place.

22. 21 The problem of proving theorems in some particular domain of mathematics. From a small set of axioms we can derive a very large number of theorems. This large number of theorems must go back to the small set of axioms. => It would be much better to reason backward when trying to prove theorems.

23. 22 What is better for justification reasons? For example, doctors are unwilling to accept the advice of a diagnostic program that cannot explain its reasoning to the doctors' satisfaction.

24. 23 PROBLEM TREES VERSUS PROBLEM GRAPHS A simple way to implement any search strategy is as a tree traversal. Each node of the tree is expanded by the production rules to generate a set of successor nodes, each of which can in turn be expanded, continuing until a node representing a solution is found.

25. 24 A piece of such a search tree for a water jug problem. 0,0 4,0 0,3 4,30,0 1,3 4,3 0,0 3,0

26. 25 Implementing such a procedure is simple and requires little bookkeeping. This process often results in the same node being generated as part of several paths and so being processed more than once. This happens because it may really be an arbitrary directed graph, rather than a tree, that must be searched.

27. 26 The waste of effort that arises when the same node is generated more than once can be avoided at the price of additional bookkeeping. Instead of traversing a search tree, we traverse a directed graph.

28. 27 To create a graph 1.Examine the set of nodes that have been created so far to see if the new node already exists. 2.If it does not, simply add it to the graph just as for a tree. 3.If it does already exist, then do the following two things:

29. 28 a. Set the node that is being expanded to point to the already existing node corresponding to its successor. b. If you are keeping track of the best (shortest or otherwise least-cost) path to each node, then check to see if the new path is better than the old one. If do, record the new path as the correct path to use to get to the node, and propagate the corresponding change in cost down through successor nodes as necessary.

30. 29 One problem that may arise here is that cycles may be introduced into the search graph. So there can be paths of arbitrary length and it may be more difficult to show that a graph traversal algorithm is guaranteed to terminate.

31. 30 KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND THE FRAME PROBLEM How can individual objects and facts be represented? How can the representations of individual objects be combined to form a representation of a complete problem state? How can the sequences of problem states that arise in a search process be represented efficiently?

32. 31 Examples For chess, we could use an array, each element of which contains a character representing the piece currently occupying that location. For the water jug problem, we can simply use a pair of integers representing the amount of water in each of the two jugs.

33. 32 How would we represent a node in the search space of a robot that can move itself and other objects around in a moderately complex world? We would want to say such things as ON(plant,table), UNDER(table,window), and IN(table, room).

34. Knowledge representation Predicates Sets of objects, each with a collection of attributes and a set of relationships to other objects. 33

35. 34 The problem of representing the facts that change as well as those that do not is known as the frame problem. For example, in a simple robot world, there might be a table with a plant on it under the window. Suppose we move the table to the center of the room. We should also infer that the plant is in the center of the room now too, but the window is not.

36. 35 MATCHING How to extract from the entire collection of rules those that can be applied at a given point. To do so requires some kind of matching between the current state and the preconditions of the rules.

37. 36 Indexing One way to select applicable rules is to do a simple search through all the rules, comparing each one's preconditions to the current state and extracting all the ones that match.

38. But in order to solve very interesting problems, it will be necessary to use a large number of rules. And also it is not always immediately obvious whether or not a rule's preconditions are satisfied by a particular state. 37

39. 38 Sometimes there are easy ways to deal with the first of these problems. Instead of searching through the rules, use the current state as an index into the rules and select the matching ones immediately. Ex. Chess: To be able to access the appropriate rules immediately assign an index to each board position. Treat the board description as a large number. A hashing function can be used to treat that number as an index into the rules.

40. 39 All the rules that describe a given board position will be stored under the same key and so will be found together. Unfortunately, this simple indexing scheme only works because preconditions of rules match exact board configurations. Thus the matching process is easy but at the price of complete lack of generality in the statement of the rules.

41. 40 Matching with Variables It often turns out that discovering whether there is a match between a particular situation and the preconditions of a given rule must itself involve a significant search process.

42. 41 Predicates Database of facts : SON(Mary,John) SON(John,Bill) SON(Bill,Tom) SON(Bill,Joe) DAUGHTER(John,Sue) DAUGHTER(Sue,Judy)

43. 42 Rules : 1 SON(x,y) Λ SON(y,z)  GRANDSON(x,z) 2 DAUGHTER(x,y) Λ SON(y,z)  GRANDSON(x,z) 3 SON(x,y) Λ DAUGHTER(y, z)  GRANDDAUGHTER(x,z)

44. Question : “Whose grandfather is John?” 43

45. 44 The database is our initial state. We want to move to a goal state representing a database containing all the initial facts plus a fact stating that someone is John's grandson. Rule 1 or rule 2 would answer a question if x were bound to John. We must first find a single substitution for y such that it is true that SON(John, y) and SON(y,z), for some value of z.

46. 45 It is usually important to record not only that a match was found between a pattern and a state description, but also what bindings were performed during the match process so that those same bindings can be used in the action part of the rule. The preconditions for rule 1 were satisfied with x equal to John, y equal to Bill, and z equal to Tom. The rule applier can then use the bindings of x and z to conclude GRANDSON(John,Tom) from GRANDSON(x, z).

47. 46 The second issue : several alternative right side actions. In this example, Rule 1 accept binding z to Tom or binding z to Joe.

48. 47 The number of states that can be generated as successors to a given state is not given just by the number of rules that can be applied, but rather by the number of ways all of the rules can be applied.

49. 48 Complex and Approximate Matching A more complex matching process is required when the preconditions of a rule specify required properties that are not stated explicitly in the description of the current state. In this case, a separate set of rules must be used to describe how some properties can be inferred from others. An even more complex matching process is required if rules should be applied if their preconditions approximately match the current situation

50. 49 ELIZA [Weizenbaum, 1966] An early A.I. program that simulated the behavior of a therapist. ELIZA's knowledge about both English and psychology was coded in a set of simple rules. ELIZA operated by matching the left sides of the rules against the user's last sentence and using the appropriate right side to generate a response.

51. 50 The rules were indexed by keywords Some of the rules had no left side, so the rule could apply anywhere. These rules were used if no other rules matched and they generated replies such as "Tell me more about that." The rules themselves cause a form of approximate matching to occur. The patterns ask about specific words in the user's sentence.

52. 51 Men are all alike. IN WHAT WAY? They're always bugging us about something or other. CAN YOU THINK OF A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE ? Well, my boyfriend made me come here.

53. 52 YOUR BOYFRIEND MADE YOU COME HERE He says I'm depressed much of the time. I AM SORRY TO HEAR YOU ARE DEPRESSED It's true. I am unhappy.

54. 53 DO YOU THINK COMING HERE WILL HELP YOU NOT TO BE UNHAPPY? I need some help, that much seems certain. WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO YOU IF YOU GOT SOME HELP? Perhaps I could learn to get along with my mother. TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY

55. 54 Filtering the Output of the Match The result of the matching process is a list of rules whose left sides have matched the current state description, along with whatever variable bindings were generated by the matching process. It is the job of the search method to decide on the order in which the rules will be applied

56. 55 Suppose that some of the rules of a system deal with situations that are special cases of the situations covered by others of the rules. Special case rules should almost always be given priority over more generally applicable rules.

57. 56 Water jug problem Add to the rules the following two special case rules: 11.(0,2)  (2,0) Pour 2 gallons into 4-gallon jug 12.(X,2| X>0)  (0,2)Empty 4-gallon jug

58. 57 These new rules are special cases of previous rules. (0,2) is a more restricted specification than (X,Y|Y>0) [the precondition of Rule 6]. The purpose of such specific rules is to allow for the kind of knowledge that expert problem solvers use when they solve problems directly, without search.

59. If we consider all rules that match, then the addition of such special-purpose rules will increase the size of the search rather than decrease it. In order to prevent that, we build the matcher so that it rejects rules that are more general than other rules that also match. 58

60. 59 If the set of preconditions of one rule contains all the preconditions of another and then some other preconditions, then the first rule is more general than the second. If the preconditions of one rule are the same as those of another except that in the first case variables are specified where in the second there are constants, then the first rule is more general than the second.

61. 60 It is also possible to assign the importance to the objects that are matched.

62. 61 ELIZA Often an input sentence contained several of the keywords that ELIZA knew. If that happened, then ELIZA made use of the fact that some keywords had been marked as being more significant than others. The pattern matcher returned the match involving the highest priority keyword.

63. 62 Matching the input sentence "I know everybody laughed at me" by the keyword I would have enabled it to respond, "You say you know everybody laughed at you." But ELIZA also knew the word everybody as a keyword. Everybody occurs more rarely than I, ELIZA knows it to be more semantically significant and thus to be the clue to which it should respond. So it will produce a response such as "Who in particular are you thinking of?"

64. 63 HEURISTIC FUNCTIONS A heuristic is a technique that aids in the discovery of solutions to problems even though there is no guarantee that it will never lead in the wrong direction. There are heuristics of very general applicability and ones that represent specific knowledge that is relevant to the solution of a particular problem.

65. The problem-solving strategies are general-purpose heuristics. In order for them to work well in a specific domain, they usually must be coupled with some special-purpose heuristics that are appropriate for that domain. 64

66. 65 Domain-specific, heuristic information can be incorporated into a rule-based search procedure: –In the rules themselves. For example, the rules for a chess playing-system might describe not simply the set of legal moves but rather a set of "sensible" moves. –As a heuristic function that evaluates individual problem states and determines how desirable they are.

67. 66 A heuristic function is a function that maps from problem state descriptions to measures of desirability, usually represented as numbers.

68. 67 Examples: CHESSthe material advantage of side over the opponent 8-PUZZLEthe number of tiles that are in the place they belong

69. 68 Heuristic function guides the search process in the most profitable direction, by suggesting which path to follow first when more than one is available. The more accurately the heuristic function estimates the true merits of each node in the search tree (or graph), the more direct will be the solution process. The heuristic function can be so good that essentially no search would be required. The system would move directly to a solution.

70. 69 WEAK METHODS Generate-and-test Hill climbing Breadth-first search Best-first search Problem reduction Constraint satisfaction Means-ends analysis

71. 70 Every search procedure can be described as a traversal of a problem graph. The simplest kind of graph to consider is the OR graph. From each node, there emerges a set of arcs, one for each of the alternative moves that can be made from the state represented by the originating node. The nodes pointed to by those arcs are known as the successors of the originating node.

72. To find a solution to a problem, a search procedure must find a path through the graph, starting at the node representing the initial state, then going to one of that node's successors, then to one of this second node's successors, and so forth, until a node representing a final state is reached 71

73. 72 The first five methods describe traversing of OR graphs. For some problems, however, it is useful to allow graphs in which a single arc points to a group of successor nodes. These graphs are called AND-OR graphs.

74. 73 Generate-and-Test The generate-and-test strategy is the simplest of all the approaches. It consists of the following steps: 1.Generate a possible solution 2.Test to see if this is actually a solution by comparing the chosen point or the endpoint of the chosen path to the set of acceptable goal states. 3.If a solution has been found, quit. Otherwise, return to step 1.

75. 74 If the generation of possible solutions is done systematically, then this procedure will find a solution eventually, if one exists. Unfortunately, if the problem space is very large, eventually may be a very long time.

76. 75 The generate-and-test algorithm is a depth-first search procedure, since complete solutions must be generated before they can be tested. In its most systematic form, it is simply an exhaustive search of the problem space. Generate-and-test can, of course, also operate by generating solutions randomly, but then there is no guarantee that a solution will ever be found.

77. 76 The most straightforward way to implement systematic generate-and-test is as a depth-first search tree with backtracking. If some intermediate states are likely to appear often in the tree, however, it may be better to modify that procedure to traverse a graph rather than a tree.

78. 77 Hill Climbing Hill climbing is a variant of generate-and-test in which feedback from the test procedure is used to help the generator decide which direction to move in the search space. In a pure generate and test procedure, the test function responds with only a yes or no. But the test function can be augmented with a heuristic function that provides an estimate of how close a given state is to a goal state.

79. 78 The Hill-Climbing Procedure 1. Generate the first proposed solution in the same way as would be done in the generate-and-test procedure. See if it is a solution. If so, quit. Else continue. 2. From this solution, apply some number of applicable rules to generate a new set of proposed solutions.

80. 79 3. For each element of the set do the following: a) Send it to the test function. If it is a solution, quit. b) If not, see if it is the closest to a solution of any of the elements tested so far. If it is, remember it. If it is not, forget it.

81. 80 4. Take the best element found above and use it as the next proposed solution. 5. Go back to step 2.

82. 81 Breadth-First Search Both generate-and-test and hill climbing are depth-first search procedures. Such procedures are often easy to implement and they may happen upon a good solution very quickly. But they also often spend a lot of time exploring unfruitful paths. The simplest alternative strategy is a breadth- first search. It is easier to consider this procedure as a tree search, but it can easily be modified to operate as a graph search.

83. 82 A breadth-first search procedure is guaranteed to find a solution if one exists, provided that there are a finite number of branches of the tree.

84. 83 There are three major problems with breadth- first search. 1. It requires a lot of memory. The number of nodes at each level of the tree increases exponentially with the level number, and they must all be stored at once. 2. It requires a lot of work, particularly if the shortest solution path is quite long, since the number of nodes that need to be examined increases exponentially with the length of the path. 3. Irrelevant or redundant operators will greatly increase the number of nodes that must be explored.

85. 84 Breadth-first search is particularly inappropriate in situations in which there are many paths that lead to solutions but each of them is quite long. In such situations, depth-first search is more likely to find a solution sooner.

86. 85 Best-First Search: OR Graphs Best-first search is a way of combining the advantages of both depth-first and breadth-first search into a single method. At each step of the best-first search process, we select the most promising of the nodes we have generated so far. We then expand the chosen node by using the rules to generate its successors. If one of them is a solution, we can quit. If not, all those new nodes are added to the set of nodes generated so far.

87. 86 The beginning of a best-first search procedure. Initially, there is only one node, so it will be expanded.

88. 87 It is sometimes important to search a graph so that duplicate paths will not be pursued. The A* algorithm, first described in [Hart, 1968; Hart, 1972], is a way to implement best-first search of a problem graph.

89. 88 The algorithm will operate by searching a directed graph in which each node represents a point in the problem space. Each node will contain, in addition to a description of the problem state it represents, an indication of how promising it is, a parent link that points back to the best node from which it came, and a list of the nodes that were generated from it.

90. The parent link will make it possible to recover the path to the goal once the goal is found. The list of successors will make it possible, if a better path is found to an already existing node, to propagate the improvement down to its successors. 89

91. 90 Two lists of nodes : OPEN—nodes that have been generated and have had the heuristic function applied to them, but which have not yet been examined (i.e., had their successors generated). This list is really a priority queue in which the elements with the highest priority are those with the most promising value of the heuristic function.

92. CLOSED—nodes that have already been examined. 91

93. 92 We will also need a heuristic function that estimates the merits of each node we generate. This will enable the algorithm to search more promising paths first. Call this function f’ (to indicate that it is an approximation to a function f that gives the true evaluation of the node).

94. 93 For many applications, it is convenient to define this function as the sum of two components, which we shall call g and h'. The function g is a measure of the cost of getting from the initial state to the current node. Note that g is not an estimate of anything; it is known exactly to be the sum of the costs of applying each of the rules that were applied along the best path to the node.

95. The function h' is an estimate of the additional cost of getting from the current node to a goal state. This is the place where knowledge about the problem domain is exploited. The combined function f', then, represents an estimate of the cost of getting from the initial state to a goal state along the path that generated the current node. 94

96. 95 If more than one path generated the node, then the algorithm will record the best one. Note that because g and h' must be added, it is important that h' be a measure of the cost of getting from the node to a solution. It is also important that g be nonnegative. If this is not true, then paths that traverse cycles in the graph will appear to get better as they get longer.

97. 96 The algorithm proceeds in steps, expanding one node at each step, until it generates a node that corresponds to a goal state. At each step, it picks the most promising of the nodes that have so far been generated but not expanded. It generates the successors of the chosen node, applies the heuristic function to them, and adds them to the list of open nodes, after checking to see if any of them have been generated before.

98. 97

99. 98

100. 99 The A* Algorithm 1. Start with OPEN containing only the initial node. Set that node's g value to 0, its h' value to whatever it is, and its f' value to h' + 0, or h'. Set CLOSED to the empty list.

101. 100 2. Until a goal node is found, repeat the following procedure: If there are no nodes on OPEN, report failure. Otherwise, pick the node on OPEN with the lowest f' value. Call it BESTNODE. –Remove it from OPEN. Place it on CLOSED. –See if BESTNODE is a goal node. –If so, exit and report a solution (either BESTNODE if all we want is the node, or the path that has been created between the initial state and BESTNODE if we are interested in the path). – Otherwise, generate the successors of BESTNODE. But don't set BESTNODE to point to them yet. For each such SUCCESSOR, do the following:

102. 101 a) Set SUCCESSOR to point back to BESTNODE. These back links will make it possible to recover the path once a solution is found b) Compute g(SUCCESSOR) = g(BESTNODE) + cost of getting from BESTNODE to SUCCESSOR.

103. 102 c) See if SUCCESSOR is the same as any node on OPEN (i.e., it has already been generated but not processed). If so, call that node OLD. Since this node already exists in the graph, we can throw SUCCESSOR away, and add OLD to the list of BESTNODE's successors.

104. 103 –Now we must decide whether OLD's parent link should be reset to point to BESTNODE. –It should be if the path we have just found to SUCCESSOR is cheaper than the current best path to OLD (since SUCCESSOR and OLD are really the same node). –So see whether it is cheaper to get to OLD via its current parent or to SUCCESSOR via BESTNODE, by comparing their g values. –If OLD is cheaper (or just as cheap), then we need do nothing. –If SUCCESSOR is cheaper, then reset OLD's parent link to point to BESTNODE, record the new cheaper path in g(OLD), and update f'(OLD).

105. 104 d) If SUCCESSOR was not on OPEN, see if it is on CLOSED. If so, call the node CLOSED OLD and add CLOSED OLD to the list of BESTNODE's successors. –Check to see if the new path or the old path is better, and set the parent link and g and f ‘ values appropriately.

106. 105 –If we have just found a better path to OLD, we must propagate the improvement to OLD's successors. OLD points to its successors. Each successor in turn points to its successors, and so forth, until each branch terminates with a node that either is still on OPEN or has no successors.

107. 106 e) If SUCCESSOR was not already on either OPEN or CLOSED, then put it on OPEN, and add it to the list of BESTNODE's successors. Compute f'(SUCCESSOR) = g(SUCCESSOR) + h'(SUCCESSOR).

108. 107 The g function lets us choose which node to expand next on the basis not only of how good the node itself looks (as measured by h'), but also on the basis of how good the path to the node was. By incorporating g into f’, we will not always choose as our next node to expand the node that appears to be closest to the goal. This is useful if we care about the path we find. If, on the other hand, we only care about getting to a solution somehow, we can define g always to be 0.

109. 108 If we want to find a path involving the fewest number of steps, then we set the cost of going from a node to its successor as a constant, usually 1.

110. 109 If h' is a perfect estimator of h, then A* will converge immediately to the goal with no search. The better h' is, the closer we will get to that direct approach. If, on the other hand, h' is always 0, the search will be controlled by g. –If g is always 1, the search will be breadth first. –All nodes on one level will have lower g values, and thus lower f’ values than will all nodes on the next level.

111. 110 What if, on the other hand, h' is neither perfect nor 0? –If we can guarantee that h' never overestimates h, the A* algorithm is guaranteed to find an optimal (as determined by g) path to a goal, if one exists.

112. 111 Example Assume the cost of all arcs is 1. Initially, all the nodes except A are on OPEN For each node, f' is indicated as the sum of h' and g.

113. 112 h’ underestimates h h’ overestimates h

114. 113 The algorithm was stated in its most general form as it applies to graphs. It can, of course, be simplified to apply to trees by not bothering to check whether a new node is already on OPEN or CLOSED.