Mon, 04 Jul 2005
AI: a modern approach
Stuart Russell, Peter Norvig, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach,
Prentice Hall
Summer vacation/holidays coming up and we're reviewing a textbook? It is indeed,
and a very widely used one at that. But never fear, when texts aren't read
under the dumbed-down hammer of continuous assessment, they can actually be fun.
I've had a habit for a while of scanning the shelves in computer
sections looking for a good, fairly all-purpose book, that acted as an
introduction but also took you on a fair journey through what has been
done and what is happening now. This book does those things and is also
written in a way that is engaging.
The book first looks at the question of what AI is and then goes on to
problem solving and knowledge and reasoning, planning, uncertainty or
fuzziness, learning and perception. Leaving aside philosophical questions
about any of this (which will bring everything to a grinding halt but
questions of "right" and "wrong" do have to be addressed at some stage),
this is as good a guide as there is.
One appealling thing about this area of study is that it hasn't all
been done yet. There has been a huge amount of work done but the early
breakthroughs that were expected have not come so, in addition to the
fine tuning of improved academic hypothesis in existing areas there's
also the possibility of great logical leaps being rewarded.
[]
permanent link
| 
pre Dec 04 reviews are here