Artificial Intelligence: A New Synthesis

Intelligent agents are employed as the central characters in this introductory text. Beginning with elementary reactive agents, Nilsson gradually increases their cognitive horsepower to illustrate the most important and lasting ideas in AI. Neural networks, genetic programming, computer vision, heuristic search, knowledge representation and reasoning, Bayes networks, planning, and language understanding are each revealed through the growing capabilities of these agents. A distinguishing feature of this text is in its evolutionary approach to the study of AI. This book provides a refreshing and motivating synthesis of the field by one of AI's master expositors and leading researches.

An evolutionary approach provides a unifying themeThorough coverage of important AI ideas, old and newFrequent use of examples and illustrative diagramsExtensive coverage of machine learning methods throughout the textCitations to over 500 referencesComprehensive index

Reactive Machines. Neural Networks. Machine Evolution. State Machines. Robot Vision. Search in State Spaces. Agents that Plan. Uninformed Search. Heuristic Search. Planning, Acting and Learning. Alternative Search. Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. The Propositional Calculus. The Predicate Calculus. Knowledge-based Systems. Representing Common sense Knowledge. Reasoning with Uncertain Information. Learning and Acting with Bayes Nets. Planning Methods Based on Logic. The Situation Calculus. Planning. Communication and Integration. Multiple Agents. Communication Among Agents. Agent Architectures.