Chapter 13 Uncertainty.ppt

Chapter 13 Uncertainty Types of uncertainty Predicate logic and uncertainty Nonmonotonic logics Truth Maintenance Systems Fuzzy sets Uncertain agent Types of Uncertainty Uncertainty in prior knowledge E.g., some causes of a disease are unknown  and are not represented in the background knowledge of a medical-assistant agent Types of Uncertainty Uncertainty in actions E.g., to deliver this lecture: I must be able to come to school the heating system must be working my computer must be working the LCD projector must be working I must not have become paralytic or blindAs we will discuss with planning, actions are represented with relatively short lists of preconditions, while these lists are in fact arbitrary long. It is not efficient (or even possible) to list all the possibilities.  Types of Uncertainty Uncertainty in perception E.g., sensors do not return exact or complete information about the world; a robot never knows exactly its position. Sources of uncertainty Laziness (efficiency) IgnoranceWhat we call uncertainty is a summary of all that is not explicitly taken into account in the agent’s knowledge base (KB). Assumptions of reasoning with predicate logic (1) Predicate descriptions must be sufficient with respect to the application domain.Each fact is known to be either true or false. But what does lack of information mean? Closed world assumption, assumption based reasoning:  PROLOG: if a fact cannot be proven to be true, assume that it is false HUMAN: if a fact cannot be proven to be false, assume it is true Assumptions of reasoning with predicate logic (cont’d) (2)The information base must be consistent. Human reasoning: keep alternative (possibly conflicting) hypotheses. Eliminate as new evidence comes in. Assumptions of reasoning with predicate logic (cont’d) (3) Known information grows monotonically through the use of inference rules. Need mechanisms to: add information based on assumptions (nonmono