p.49 this chapter will present the informed search methods. These methods
incorporate a heuristic, which is used to determine the quality of any state in the search space. In a graph search, this
results in a strategy for node expansion (which node should be evaluated next). A variety of informed search methods
will be investigated and, as with uninformed methods, compared using a common set of metrics.
A heuristic is a rule of thumb that may help solve a given
problem. Heuristics take problem knowledge into consideration to help guide the search within the domain.
p.51 An important aspect of problem solving and search is representation.
p.109 Chess is an interesting test-bed for intelligent applications
because the game is rich and complex with a massive search space. For this reason, traditional search algorithms are woefully
inadequate to play a reasonably intelligent game.
p.111 Static Board Evaluation
It should be clear that unless we're near the end-game, our search
of the game tree will not encounter any leaf nodes [i.e., checkmate for the game of chess]. Therefore, we'll need
to have a good utility function that helps us decide which move to make given our nearby horizon. The utility function for
Chess defines whether a given board configuration if good or bad for the player, and it can decide this based on a large number
of factors. For example, is our king or an important piece in jeopardy, or is the opponent in jeopardy for the current board?
Is a piece lost in the board, and if it is, what's the cost of the piece (pawn being the least, followed by the bishop, knight,
rook, and queen in increasing value). Some of the other evaluations that can take place include the space available for pieces
to move to and then the number of current threats (for or against).
p.167 An Ontology is a core concept in modern knowledge representation,
though the ideas behind it have been in existence since the beginning of KR. An ontology from the perspective of AI
is a model that represents a set of concepts within a specific domain as well as the relationships between those concepts.
p.168 Computer systems that include some form of AI for
a given problem domain can still rightly be considered unintelligent because they lack some of the most fundamental
knowledge called common sense... To enable reasoning at a common-sense level, a common-sense knowledge base is proposed
that contains common-sense knowledge that most people possess. This knowledge base is constructed in a way that an application
can use it to create inferences (to reason).
