Topic – 7: Uncertainty

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Daffodil International University
 Topic Contents

Acting under Uncertainty

Basic Probability Notation

The Axioms of Probability

Inference Using Full Joint Distributions

Independence

Bayes’ Rule and Its Use

 Autonomous Agents

Real World Driving Agent

Sensors Model of Prior Knowledge

vehicle location & status physics of movement
camera road status rules of road
tachometer
engine status
temperature Reasoning &
Decisions Making

Effectors Actions
Goals
change speed
drive home
accelerator change steering
brakes
steering 3
Uncertainty in the World Model
 The agent can never be completely certain about the
state of the external world since there is ambiguity and
uncertainty.
Why?
 sensors have limited precision
e.g. camera has only so many pixels to capture an image
 sensors have limited accuracy
e.g. tachometer’s estimate of velocity is approximate
 there are hidden variables that sensors can’t “see”
e.g. vehicle behind large truck or storm clouds approaching
 the future is unknown, uncertain,
i.e. cannot foresee all possible future events which may happen

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Rules and Uncertainty
Say we have a rule:
if toothache then problem is cavity
But not all patients have toothaches due to cavities
so we could set up rules like:
if toothache and not(gum disease) and not(filling) and ...
then problem = cavity
This gets complicated, a better method would be:
if toothache then problem is cavity with 0.8 probability
or P(cavity|toothache) = 0.8
the probability of cavity is 0.8 given toothache is all that is
known

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Uncertainty in the World Model
True uncertainty: rules are probabilistic in nature
 rolling dice, flipping a coin?
Laziness: too hard to determine exceptionless rules
 takes too much work to determine all of the relevant factors
 too hard to use the enormous rules that result
Theoretical ignorance: don't know all the rules
 problem domain has no complete theory (medical diagnosis)
Practical ignorance: do know all the rules BUT
 haven't collected all relevant information for a particular case

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 Logics
 Logics are characterized by
what they commit to as "primitives".
Logic What Exists in World Knowledge States
Propositional facts true/false/unknown
First-Order facts, objects, true/false/unknown
relations
Temporal facts, objects, true/false/unknown
relations, times
Probability facts degree of belief
Theory 0..1
Fuzzy degree of truth degree of belief
0..1

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Probability Theory
 Probability theory serves as a formal means
for representing and reasoning
with uncertain knowledge
of manipulating degrees of belief
in a proposition (event, conclusion, diagnosis, etc.)

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Utility Theory
Every state has a degree of usefulness or utility and
the agent will prefer states with higher utility.

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Decision Theory
An agent is rational if and only if it chooses the action
that yields the highest expected utility, averaged over all
the possible outcomes of the action.

Decision theory = probability theory + utility theory

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 Kolmogorov's Axioms of Probability
1. 0 ≤ P(a) ≤ 1
probabilities are between 0 and 1 inclusive
2. P(true) = 1, P(false) = 0
probability of 1 for propositions believed to be absolutely true
probability of 0 for propositions believed to be absolutely false
3. P(a  b) = P(a) + P(b) - P(a  b)
probability of two states is their sum minus their “intersection”

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Inference Using Full Joint Distribution
Start with the joint probability
distribution:

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 Inference by Enumeration

Start with a full joint probability distribution for the

Toothache, Cavity, Catch world:

P(toothache) = 0.108 + 0.012 + 0.016 + 0.064 = 0.2

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 Inference by Enumeration

 Start with the joint probability distribution:

 Can also compute conditional probabilities:

P(cavity | toothache) = P(cavity  toothache)
P(toothache)

= 0.016+0.064
0.108 + 0.012 + 0.016 + 0.064
= 0.4

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 Independence
Independence between propositions a and b can be
written as:
P(a | b) = P(a) or P(b | a) = P(b) or P(a  b) = P(a) P(b)
 Independence assertions are usually based on
knowledge of the domain.
As we have seen, they can dramatically reduce the
amount of information necessary to specify the full joint
distribution.
If the complete set of variables can be divided into
independent subsets, then the full joint can be factored
into separate joint distributions on those subsets.
For example, the joint distribution on the outcome of n
independent coin flips, P(C1, . . . , Cn), can be represented
as the product of n single-variable distributions P(Ci).
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Bayes’ Theorem

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 Bayes’ Theorem
P(AB) = P(A|B)P(B)
P(BA) = P(B|A)P(A)

P(B|A)P(A) = P(A|B)P(B)

P(B|A) = P(A|B)P(B)
P(A)
Bayes’ law (also Bayes’ law or Bayes’ rule) is fundamental to
probabilistic reasoning in AI!!

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 Bayes’ in Action
Bayes’ rule requires three terms - a conditional probability
and two unconditional probabilities - just to compute one
conditional probability.
Bayes’ rule is useful in practice because there are many
cases where we do have good probability estimates for
these three numbers and need to compute the fourth.
In a task such as medical diagnosis, we often have
conditional probabilities on causal relationships and want
to derive a diagnosis.

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 Bayes’ in Action
Example:
A doctor knows that the disease meningitis causes the patient
to have a stiff neck, say, 50% of the time. The doctor also knows
some unconditional facts: the prior probability that a patient
has meningitis is 1/50,000, and the prior probability that any
patient has a stiff neck is 1/20. Let s be the proposition that the
patient has a stiff neck and m be the proposition that the
patient has meningitis.
Solution:
 This question can be answered by using the well-known
Bayes’ theorem.
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 Bayes’ in Action
Solution:
P(s|m) = 0.5
P(m) = 1/50000
P(s) = 1/20

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 Bayes’ Theorem
Example
Consider a football game between two rival teams: Team 0 and
Team 1. Suppose Team 0 wins 65% of the time and Team 1 wins
the remaining matches. Among the games won by Team 0, only
30% of them come from playing on Team 1 ’s football field. On
the other hand, 75% of the victories for Team 1 are obtained
while playing at home. If Team 1 is to host the next match
between the two teams, which team will most likely emerge as
the winner?
Solution:
This question can be answered by using the well-known Bayes’
theorem.
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Bayes’ Theorem

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Bayes’ Theorem

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Using Bayes’ Theorem More Realistically
Bayes’ian updating
P(Cavity | Toothache  Catch) = P(Toothache  Catch | Cavity) P(Cavity)

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THANKS…