Artificial Intelligence: A New Synthesis

Front Cover
Elsevier, Apr 17, 1998 - Computers - 513 pages
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 theme
  • Thorough coverage of important AI ideas, old and new
  • Frequent use of examples and illustrative diagrams
  • Extensive coverage of machine learning methods throughout the text
  • Citations to over 500 references
  • Comprehensive index
 

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
1
Reactive Machines
19
Search in State Spaces
115
Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
215
Planning Methods Based on Logic
361
Communication and Integration
405
Bibliography
453
Index
493
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About the author (1998)

Nils J. Nilsson's long and rich research career has contributed much to AI. He has written many books, including the classic Principles of Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Nilsson is Kumagai Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, at Stanford University. He has served on the editorial boards of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and as an Area Editor for the Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery. Former Chairman of the Department of Computer Science at Stanford, and former Director of the SRI Artificial Intelligence Center, he is also a past president and Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence.

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