Independence and Bayes Rule

CSC 261 - Artificial Intelligence - Weinman



Answer the following questions. Record your answers in your Reading Journal.
  1. Select the sentence from today's reading that you feel best illustrates the practical benefits of independence. Briefly (3-5 sentences) explain why you chose this sentence.
  2. Due to the desiderata for probability theory, Jaynes asserts that two rational agents with the same experience and prior knowledge should arrive at the same conclusions (probabilities). Given such a view, speculate as to why one would use Bayes' rule to figure P(Hypothesis | Experience,Knowledge), rather than write down the value more directly.
  3. Give and briefly explain an example of two "propositions" from your own experience that exhibit conditional independence given some third proposition.