Nondeterministic Environments and Partial Observations

CSC 261 - Artificial Intelligence - Weinman



Answer the following questions. Record your answers in your Reading Journal.
  1. Give an example from your own experience of a contingency problem you have faced, briefly explaining why it meets the reading's definition.
  2. Identify the sentence from the reading you believe best illustrates the common issues of a sensorless agent and a nondeterministic problem environment. That is, what issue(s) do these two different types of problems have in common? Briefly (3-5 sentences) explain your choice.
  3. Russell and Norvig state "With nondetermnistic [sic] actions the PREDICT step grows the belief state, but the UPDATE step shrinks it back down" (p. 146, bottom). Briefly (3-5 sentences) unpack and explain this assertion in your own words.1

Footnotes:

1But preferably not as Calvin does.