Artificial Intelligence: Assignment 1

Artificial Intelligence: Assignment 1 Solutions and Grading Policy

Problem 1 (4 points):

Part A: Read Chapter 1 of the text and answer the following question in your own words: Is a machine that passes the Turing test intelligent?
Justify your answer.
For this question I expected a discussion which acknowledged that the answer depends on your definition of intelligence, and an informed (you read the Chapter) definition of intelligence to support your conclusion reguarding the Turing test. Most did well on this part of the assignment.

Part B: Pick two of the following founders of AI: McCarthy, Minsky, Shannon, Newell, and Simon (see Section 1.3 in text). Search the library and/or Internet for additional information on each. Based on what you find, briefly describe in your own words their contributions to the field of AI, and their approach to solving AI problems. (Cite your sources!)
For this question I expected to see at least one reference other than the textbook and a brief discussion of each founders' contribution. Stating that they were a founder was not enough, you have to tell me what they did to earn that title. Most did well on this part as well.

Problem 2 (6 points): A solution to the problem requires the following:

Reading the start configuration from a file.
Creating a successor function.
Creating a procedure to check if a state is a goal state.
Implementing a search algorithm, Best-first search recommended.
Creating a node structure (may or may not use parent pointers to form a tree) to facilitate search and solution generation.
Creating a procedure for determining the cost or priority of each node.
Creating a procedure to print the solution.

These are the elements I expected to find in your code. For full points your code had to find optimal solutions for all of the following examples:
Easy: easy_example_2 Start Solution, easy_example_3 Start Solution
Medium: medium_example_2 Start Solution, medium_example_3 Start Solution
Hard: hard_example_2 Start Solution, hard_example_3 Start Solution

Some of your programs found other solutions then those I have here. So long as the solution was still valid and had the same (optimal) cost you did not loose credit.