UNIT 5

PROBABILISTIC REASONING

Representing knowledge in an uncertain

domain, the semantics of Bayesian networks,
Dempster-Shafer theory, Planning Overview,
components of a planning system, Goal stack
planning, Hierarchical planning, other
planning techniques.
Expert Systems: Representing and using
domain knowledge, expert system shells, and
knowledge acquisition.
 Probabilistic reasoning in Artificial intelligence
Uncertainty:
• Till now, we have learned knowledge representation
using first-order logic and propositional logic with
certainty, which means we were sure about the
predicates.
• With this knowledge representation, we might write
A→B, which means if A is true then B is true, but
consider a situation where we are not sure about
whether A is true or not then we cannot express this
statement, this situation is called uncertainty.
• So to represent uncertain knowledge, where we are not
sure about the predicates, we need uncertain reasoning
or probabilistic reasoning.
 Causes of uncertainty:
Following are some leading causes of uncertainty
to occur in the real world.
• Information occurred from unreliable sources.
• Experimental Errors
• Equipment fault
• Temperature variation
• Climate change.
 Definition of Probabilistic reasoning:

• Probabilistic reasoning is a way of knowledge

representation where we apply the concept of
probability to indicate the uncertainty in knowledge.
• In probabilistic reasoning, we combine probability
theory with logic to handle the uncertainty.
• We use probability in probabilistic reasoning because
it provides a way to handle the uncertainty that is
the result of someone's laziness and ignorance.
 Need of probabilistic reasoning in AI:
• When there are unpredictable outcomes.
• When specifications or possibilities of
predicates becomes too large to handle.
• When an unknown error occurs during an
experiment.
• In probabilistic reasoning, there are two ways
to solve problems with uncertain knowledge:
• Bayes' rule
• Bayesian Statistics
 Need of probabilistic reasoning in AI:

• Probability: Probability can be defined as a

chance that an uncertain event will occur. It is
the numerical measure of the likelihood that an
event will occur.
• The value of probability always remains between
0 and 1 that represent ideal uncertainties.
• 0 ≤ P(A) ≤ 1, where P(A) is the probability of an
event A.
• P(A) = 0, indicates total uncertainty in an event A
• P(A) =1, indicates total certainty in an event A.
• We can find the probability of an uncertain event by using
the below formula.
• P(¬A) = probability of a not happening event.
P(¬A) + P(A) = 1.
• Event: Each possible outcome of a variable is called an
event.
• Sample space: The collection of all possible events is
called sample space.
• Random variables: Random variables are used to
represent the events and objects in the real world.
• Prior probability: The prior probability of an event is
probability computed before observing new information.
• Posterior Probability: The probability that is calculated
after all evidence or information has taken into account. It
is a combination of prior probability and new information.
 Conditional probability:
• Conditional probability is a probability of
occurring an event when another event has
already happened.
• Let's suppose, we want to calculate the event
A when event B has already occurred, "the
probability of A under the conditions of B", it
can be written as:
• Where P(A⋀B)= Joint probability of a and B
• P(B)= Marginal probability of B.
 Example:
• In a class, there are 70% of the students who like
English and 40% of the students who likes English and
mathematics, and then what is the percent of students
those who like English also like mathematics?
• Solution:
• Let, A is an event that a student likes Mathematics
• B is an event that a student likes English.

• Hence, 57% are the students who like English also like
Mathematics.
 Bayesian Network
• Bayesian network is a data structure to represent an
uncertain knowledge or domain.
• It is a directed acyclic graph whose nodes
correspond to random variables.
• Each node is annotated with conditional probability
distribution for the node given it’s parents.
• Bayesian networks, often abbreviated as “Bayes
net” were called belief networks in the 1980s and
1990s.
Bayesian Belief Network in artificial intelligence
• Bayesian belief network is key computer technology for
dealing with probabilistic events and to solve a problem
which has uncertainty. We can define a Bayesian
network as:
• "A Bayesian network is a probabilistic graphical model
which represents a set of variables and their conditional
dependencies using a directed acyclic graph."
• It is also called a Bayes network, belief network,
decision network, or Bayesian model.
• Bayesian networks are probabilistic, because these
networks are built from a probability distribution, and
also use probability theory for prediction and anomaly
detection.
 Bayesian Belief Network
• Real world applications are probabilistic in nature, and to
represent the relationship between multiple events, we need
a Bayesian network.
• It can also be used in various tasks including prediction,
anomaly detection, diagnostics, automated insight,
reasoning, time series prediction, and decision making
under uncertainty.
• Bayesian Network can be used for building models from data
and experts opinions, and it consists of two parts:
• Directed Acyclic Graph
• Table of conditional probabilities.
• The generalized form of Bayesian network that represents
and solve decision problems under uncertain knowledge is
known as an Influence diagram.
 The Bayesian network has mainly two components:
• Causal Component
• Actual numbers
• Each node in the Bayesian network has condition probability
distribution P(Xi |Parent(Xi) ), which determines the effect of
the parent on that node.
• Bayesian network is based on Joint probability distribution
and conditional probability. So let's first understand the joint
probability distribution:
Joint probability distribution:
• If we have variables x1, x2, x3,....., xn, then the probabilities of
a different combination of x1, x2, x3.. xn, are known as Joint
probability distribution.
• P[x1, x2, x3,....., xn], it can be written as the
following way in terms of the joint probability
distribution.
• = P[x1| x2, x3,....., xn]P[x2, x3,....., xn]
• = P[x1| x2, x3,....., xn]P[x2|x3,....., xn]....P[xn-1|
xn]P[xn].
• In general for each variable Xi, we can write
the equation as:
• P(Xi|Xi-1,........., X1) = P(Xi |Parents(Xi ))
 Example:
• Harry installed a new burglar alarm at his home to
detect burglary. The alarm reliably responds at
detecting a burglary but also responds for minor
earthquakes. Harry has two neighbors John and Mary,
who have taken a responsibility to inform Harry at work
when they hear the alarm. John always calls Harry when
he hears the alarm, but sometimes he got confused
with the phone ringing and calls at that time too. On
the other hand, Mary likes to listen to high music, so
sometimes she misses to hear the alarm. Here we
would like to compute the probability of Burglary
Alarm.
 Problem:

• Calculate the probability that alarm has sounded, but there is neither a
burglary, nor an earthquake occurred, and John and Mary both called
the Harry.
Solution:
• The network structure is showing that burglary and earthquake is the
parent node of the alarm and directly affecting the probability of
alarm's going off, but John and Mary calls depend on alarm probability.
• The network is representing that our assumptions do not directly
perceive the burglary and also do not notice the minor earthquake,
and they also not confer before calling.
• The conditional distributions for each node are given as conditional
probabilities table or CPT.
• Each row in the CPT must be sum to 1 because all the entries in the
table represent an exhaustive set of cases for the variable.
• In CPT, a boolean variable with k boolean parents contains
2K probabilities. Hence, if there are two parents, then CPT will contain
4 probability values
 1. Directed acyclic graph
• Nodes = random variables Burglary, Earthquake, Alarm,
Mary calls and John calls
• Links = direct (causal) dependencies between variables,
• The chance of Alarm is influenced by Earthquake
• The chance of John calling is affected by the Alarm
 2. Local conditional distributions
• Relate variables and their parents.
• The local probability information attached to each
node takes the form of a conditional probability table
(CPT).
• Each row in the CPT contains the conditional
probability of each node value for conditioning case.
• A conditioning case is just the possible combination
of values for the parent nodes.
• Each row must sum to 1, because the entries
represent an exhaustive set of cases for the variable.
• Let's take the observed probability for the
Burglary and earthquake component:

• P(B= True) = 0.001, which is the probability of

burglary.
• P(B= False)= 0.999, which is the probability of
no burglary.
• P(E= True)= 0.002, which is the probability of a
minor earthquake
• P(E= False)= 0.998, Which is the probability
that an earthquake not occurred.
• From the formula of joint distribution, we can
write the problem statement in the form of
probability distribution:
• Query 1: P(M, J, A, ¬B, ¬E)
• = P (M|A) *P (J|A)*P (A|¬B ^ ¬E) *P (¬B) *P (¬E).
• = 0.75* 0.91* 0.001* 0.999*0.998
• = 0.00068045.

• Query 2: P(M, J, ¬A, ¬B, E)

• Hence, a Bayesian network can answer any query
about the domain by using Joint distribution.
The semantics of Bayesian Network:
• There are two ways to understand the semantics of
the Bayesian network, which is given below:
1. To understand the network as the representation
of the Joint probability distribution.
• It is helpful to understand how to construct the
network.
2. To understand the network as an encoding of a
collection of conditional independence statements.
• It is helpful in designing inference procedure.
Example
Example
 What is planning in AI?

• Planning in artificial intelligence is about

decision-making actions performed by robots
or computer programs to achieve a specific
goal.
• Execution of the plan is about choosing a
sequence of tasks with a high probability of
accomplishing a specific task.
 Components of a planning system
• Artificial intelligence is an important technology in the future.
Whether it is intelligent robots, self-driving cars, or smart
cities, they will all use different aspects of artificial
intelligence. But Planning is very important to make any such
AI project.
• Even Planning is an important part of Artificial Intelligence
which deals with the tasks and domains of a particular
problem.
• Planning is considered the logical side of acting.
• Everything we humans do is with a definite goal in mind, and
all our actions are oriented towards achieving our goal.
Similarly, Planning is also done for Artificial Intelligence.
 Components of the planning system

The plan includes the following important steps:

• Choose the best rule to apply the next rule based
on the best available guess.
• Apply the chosen rule to calculate the new
problem condition.
• Find out when a solution has been found.
• Detect dead ends so they can be discarded and
direct system effort in more useful directions.
• Find out when a near-perfect solution is found.
 1. Forward State Space Planning (FSSP)

• FSSP behaves in the same way as forwarding state-

space search.
• It says that given an initial state S in any domain, we
perform some necessary actions and obtain a new
state S' (which also contains some new terms),
called a progression.
• It continues until we reach the target position.
Action should be taken in this matter.
Disadvantage: Large branching factor
Advantage: The algorithm is Sound
 2. Backward State Space Planning (BSSP)
• BSSP behaves similarly to backward state-space search. In
this, we move from the target state g to the sub-goal g,
tracing the previous action to achieve that goal.
• This process is called regression (going back to the previous
goal or sub-goal). These sub-goals should also be checked for
consistency.
• The action should be relevant in this case.
Disadvantages: not sound algorithm (sometimes inconsistency
can be found)
Advantage: Small branching factor (much smaller than FSSP)
• So for an efficient planning system, we need to combine the
features of FSSP and BSSP, which gives rise to target stack
planning
 Block-world planning problem

• The block-world problem is known as the Sussmann

anomaly.
• The non-interlaced planners of the early 1970s were unable
to solve this problem. Therefore it is considered odd.
• When two sub-goals, G1 and G2, are given, a non-
interleaved planner either produces a plan for G1 that is
combined with a plan for G2 or vice versa.
• In the block-world problem, three blocks labeled 'A', 'B',
and 'C' are allowed to rest on a flat surface. The given
condition is that only one block can be moved at a time to
achieve the target.
The start position and target position are
shown in the following diagram.
 What is Goal Stack Planning?
• Goal Stack Planning is one of the earliest methods in
artificial intelligence in which we work backwards from the
goal state to the initial state.
• We start at the goal state and we try fulfilling the
preconditions required to achieve the initial state.
• These preconditions in turn have their own set of
preconditions, which are required to be satisfied first. We
keep solving these “goals” and “sub-goals” until we finally
arrive at the Initial State.
• We make use of a stack to hold these goals that need to
be fulfilled as well the actions that we need to perform
for the same.
 Goal Stack Planning
• Apart from the “Initial State” and the “Goal State”,
we maintain a “World State” configuration as well.
• Goal Stack uses this world state to work its way
from Goal State to Initial State.
• World State on the other hand starts off as the
Initial State and ends up being transformed into the
Goal state.
• At the end of this algorithm we are left with an
empty stack and a set of actions which helps us
navigate from the Initial State to the World State.
Representing the configurations as a list of “predicates”

• Predicates can be thought of as a statement which

helps us convey the information about a configuration
in Blocks World.
• Given below are the list of predicates as well as their
intended meaning
1. ON(A,B) : Block A is on B
2. ONTABLE(A) : A is on table
3. CLEAR(A) : Nothing is on top of A
4. HOLDING(A) : Arm is holding A.
5. ARMEMPTY : Arm is holding nothing
• Using these predicates, we represent the
Initial State and the Goal State in our example
like this:
• Initial State — ON(B,A) ∧ ONTABLE(A) ∧ ONTABLE(C) ∧
ONTABLE(D) ∧ CLEAR(B) ∧ CLEAR(C) ∧ CLEAR(D) ∧
ARMEMPTY
• Goal State — ON(C,A) ∧ ON(B,D) ∧ ONTABLE(A) ∧
ONTABLE(D) ∧ CLEAR(B) ∧ CLEAR(C) ∧ ARMEMPTY

• Thus a configuration can be thought of as a list of predicates

describing the current scenario.
“Operations” performed by the robot arm

• The Robot Arm can perform 4 operations:

• STACK(X,Y) : Stacking Block X on Block Y
• UNSTACK(X,Y) : Picking up Block X which is on top of
Block Y
• PICKUP(X) : Picking up Block X which is on top of the
table
• PUTDOWN(X) : Put Block X on the table
• All the four operations have certain preconditions which
need to be satisfied to perform the same. These
preconditions are represented in the form of
predicates.
 Goal Stack Planning
• The effect of these operations is represented using two
lists ADD and DELETE.
• DELETE List contains the predicates which will cease to
be true once the operation is performed.
• ADD List on the other hand contains the predicates
which will become true once the operation is performed.
• The Precondition, Add and Delete List for each operation
is rather intuitive and have been listed below.
Goal Stack Planning
 Goal Stack Planning
• For example, to perform the STACK(X,Y) operation i.e. to Stack
Block X on top of Block Y, No other block should be on top of
Y (CLEAR(Y)) and the Robot Arm should be holding the Block X
(HOLDING(X)).
• Once the operation is performed, these predicates will cease to be
true, thus they are included in DELETE List as well. (Note : It is not
necessary for the Precondition and DELETE List to be the exact
same).
• On the other hand, once the operation is performed, The robot
arm will be free (ARMEMPTY) and the block X will be on top of Y
(ON(X,Y)).
• The other 3 Operators follow similar logic, and this part is the
cornerstone of Goal Stack Planning.
In this example, steps = [PICKUP(C), PUTDOWN(C), UNSTACK(B,A), PUTDOWN(B), PICKUP(C), STACK(C,A), PICKUP(B), STACK(B,D)]
The visual representation of our steps variable looks like this .
 Target stack plan

• It is one of the most important planning

algorithms used by STRIPS.
• Stacks are used in algorithms to capture the
action and complete the target. A knowledge
base is used to hold the current situation and
actions.
• A target stack is similar to a node in a search
tree, where branches are created with a
choice of action.
The important steps of the algorithm are mentioned below:

• Start by pushing the original target onto the stack. Repeat

this until the pile is empty. If the stack top is a mixed
target, push its unsatisfied sub-targets onto the stack.
• If the stack top is a single unsatisfied target, replace it with
action and push the action precondition to the stack to
satisfy the condition.
• If the stack top is an action, pop it off the stack, execute it
and replace the knowledge base with the action's effect.
• If the stack top is a satisfactory target, pop it off the
stack.
 STRIPS
• STRIPS stands for "STanford Research Institute
Problem Solver," was the planner used in
Shakey, one of the first robots built using AI
technology ,which is an action-centric
representation ,for each action , specifies the
effect of an action.
 STRIPS

• The STRIPS representation for an action

consists of three lists,
• Pre_Cond list contains predicates which have
to be true before operation.
• ADD list contains those predicates which will
be true after operation
• DELETE list contain those predicates which
are no longer true after operation
• Predicates not included on either of these lists are assumed to be unaffected by
the operation. Frame axioms are specified implicitly in STRIPS which greatly
reduces amount of information stored. Let us discuss about the action lists for
operations of block world problem.
Stack (X, Y)
• Pre: CL (Y) ,HOLD (X)
• Del: CL (Y), HOLD (X)
• Add: AE , ON (X, Y)
UnStack (X, Y)
• Pre: ON (X, Y) , CL (X) , AE
• Del: ON (X, Y) , AE
• Add: HOLD (X) , CL (Y)
Pickup (X)
• Pre: ONT (X) , CL (X) ,AE
• Del: ONT (X) , AE
• Add: HOLD (X)
Putdown (X)
• Pre: HOLD (X)
• Del: HOLD (X)
• Add: ONT (X) , AE
Consider a Block world problem
• Goal state
Initial State • Goal State
• on(block2, block1) • empty
• clear(block2) on(block3, block4)
• ontable(block3) on(block5, block1)
ont(block2)
• on(block4, block3)
• on(block5, block4)
• clear(block5)
Identify the style operators for given problem,
Unstack(block5,block4)
Pre: ON (block5, block4) , CL (block5) , AE
Del: ON (block5,block4) , AE
Add: HOLD (block5) , CL (block4)
Putdown(block5)
• Pre: HOLD (block5)
• Del: HOLD (block5)
• Add: ONT (block5) , AE
Unstack(block4,block3)
• Pre: ON (block4, block3) , CL (block4) , AE
• Del: ON (block4,block3) , AE
• Add: HOLD (block4) , CL (block3)
Putdown(block4)
• Pre: HOLD (block4)
• Del: HOLD (block4)
• Add: ONT (block4) , AE
• Pickup(block3)
• Pre: ONT (block3) , CL (block3) ,AE
• Del: ONT (block3) , AE
• Add: HOLD (block3)
Stack(block3,block4)
• Pre: CL (block3) ,HOLD (block3)
• Del: CL (block4), HOLD (block3)
• Add: AE , ON (block3, block4)
• Unstack(block2,block1)
• Pre: ON (block2, block1) , CL (block2) , AE
• Del: ON (block2, block1) , AE
• Add: HOLD (block2) , CL (block3)
Putdown(block2)
• Pre: HOLD (block2)
• Del: HOLD (block2)
• Add: ONT (block2) , AE
Pickup(block5)
• Pre: ONT (block5) , CL (block5) ,AE
• Del: ONT (block5) , AE
• Add: HOLD (block5)
Stack(block5,block1)
• Pre: CL (block1) ,HOLD (block5)
• Del: CL (block1), HOLD (block5)
• Add: AE , ON (block5, block1)
After completing all the operations
what we found for the given
problem,we had reaches the goal state.

armempty
on(block3, block4)
on(block5, block1)
ont(block2)
 What is an Expert System?

• An expert system is a computer program that is designed to solve

complex problems and to provide decision-making ability like a
human expert.
• It performs this by extracting knowledge from its knowledge base
using the reasoning and inference rules according to the user queries.
• The expert system is a part of AI, and the first ES was developed in the
year 1970, which was the first successful approach of artificial
intelligence.
• It solves the most complex issue as an expert by extracting the
knowledge stored in its knowledge base.
• The system helps in decision making for complex problems using both
facts and heuristics like a human expert.
• It is called so because it contains the expert knowledge of a specific
domain and can solve any complex problem of that particular domain.
• These systems are designed for a specific domain, such as medicine,
science, etc.
 The block diagram that represents the working of an
expert system:

•It is important to remember that an expert system is not used to replace the
human experts; instead, it is used to assist the human in making a complex
decision.
•These systems do not have human capabilities of thinking and work on the
basis of the knowledge base of the particular domain.
 Below are some popular examples of the Expert System:

• DENDRAL: It was an artificial intelligence project that was made

as a chemical analysis expert system. It was used in organic
chemistry to detect unknown organic molecules with the help of
their mass spectra and knowledge base of chemistry.
• MYCIN: It was one of the earliest backward chaining expert
systems that was designed to find the bacteria causing infections
like bacteraemia and meningitis. It was also used for the
recommendation of antibiotics and the diagnosis of blood
clotting diseases.
• PXDES: It is an expert system that is used to determine the type
and level of lung cancer. To determine the disease, it takes a
picture from the upper body, which looks like the shadow. This
shadow identifies the type and degree of harm.
• CaDeT: The CaDet expert system is a diagnostic support system
that can detect cancer at early stages.
 Components of Expert System

• An expert system mainly consists of three components:

• User Interface
• Inference Engine
• Knowledge Base
 1. User Interface

• With the help of a user interface, the expert

system interacts with the user, takes queries
as an input in a readable format, and passes it
to the inference engine.
• After getting the response from the inference
engine, it displays the output to the user.
• In other words, it is an interface that helps a
non-expert user to communicate with the
expert system to find a solution.
 2. Inference Engine(Rules of Engine)
• The inference engine is known as the brain of the expert system
as it is the main processing unit of the system. It applies inference
rules to the knowledge base to derive a conclusion or deduce new
information.
• It helps in deriving an error-free solution of queries asked by the
user.
• With the help of an inference engine, the system extracts the
knowledge from the knowledge base.
• There are two types of inference engine:
• Deterministic Inference engine: The conclusions drawn from this
type of inference engine are assumed to be true. It is based
on facts and rules.
• Probabilistic Inference engine: This type of inference engine
contains uncertainty in conclusions, and based on the probability.
 3. Knowledge Base
• The knowledgebase is a type of storage that stores
knowledge acquired from the different experts of the
particular domain.
• It is considered as big storage of knowledge. The more
the knowledge base, the more precise will be the Expert
System.
• It is similar to a database that contains information and
rules of a particular domain or subject.
• One can also view the knowledge base as collections of
objects and their attributes.
• Such as a Lion is an object and its attributes are it is a
mammal, it is not a domestic animal, etc.
Knowledge Base (Representing and Using Domain Knowledge)

• Expert system is built around a knowledge base module.

• Expert system contains a formal representation of the
information provided by the domain expert.
• This information may be in the form of problem-solving rules,
procedures, or data intrinsic to the domain.
• To incorporate these information into the system, it is necessary
to make use of one or more knowledge representation methods.
Some of these methods are described here.
• Transferring knowledge from the human expert to a computer is
often the most difficult part of building an expert system.
• The knowledge acquired from the human expert must be
encoded in such a way that it remains a faithful representation
of what the expert knows, and it can be manipulated by a
computer.
• Three common methods of knowledge representation evolved over the
years are
• IF-THEN rules,
• Semantic networks and
• Frames.

1. IF-THEN rules
• Human experts usually tend to think along :

• condition ⇒ action or Situation ⇒ conclusion

• Rules "if-then" are predominant form of encoding knowledge in expert

systems. These are of the form :
• If a1 , a2 , . . . . . , an
• Then b1 , b2 , . . . . . , bn where
• each ai is a condition or situation, and
• each bi is an action or a conclusion.
2. Semantic Networks
• In this scheme, knowledge is represented in
terms of objects and relationships between
objects.
• The objects are denoted as nodes of a graph.
• The relationship between two objects are
denoted as a link between the corresponding
two nodes.
• The most common form of semantic networks
uses the links between nodes to represent
IS-A and HAS relationships between objects.
 Example of Semantic Network
• The Fig. below shows a car IS-A vehicle; a vehicle HAS wheels.
• This kind of relationship establishes an inheritance in the
network, with the objects lower down in the network
inheriting properties from the objects higher up.
3. Frames
• In this technique, knowledge is decomposed into highly modular
pieces called frames, which are generalized record structures.
Knowledge consist of concepts, situations, attributes of
concepts, relationships between concepts, and procedures to
handle relationships as well as attribute values.
• Each concept may be represented as a separate frame.
• The attributes, the relationships between concepts, and the
procedures are allotted to slots in a frame.
• The contents of a slot may be of any data type - numbers,
strings, functions or procedures and so on.
• The frames may be linked to other frames, providing the same
kind of inheritance as that provided by a semantic network.
• A frame-based representation is ideally suited for objected-
oriented programming techniques. An example of Frame-based
representation of knowledge is shown in next slide.
 Expert System Shells

• Expert system shells are toolkits that can be used to

develop expert systems.
• They consist of some built expert system components
with an empty knowledge base.
• Hence, in most cases, the knowledge engineer is left with
only populating the knowledge base.
• It is essentially a special-purpose tool that is built-in in
line with the requirements and standards of a particular
domain or expert-knowledge area applications.
• It may be defined as a software package that facilitates
the building of knowledge-based expert systems by
providing a knowledge representation scheme and an
inference engine.
• Difference ES shells offer various ways to
model the knowledge into the knowledge
base. They are
1. as rules
2. in the form of a decision tree
3. as objects (frames)
 3. as objects (frames) — A data structure with
typical knowledge about a particular object or
concept.
• ES shell is an ideal option for the rapid
development of expert systems.
• Due to this reason, it can be considered as one
of the most commercially viable approaches in
expert system implementation.
 Knowledge Acquisitions:
• In artificial intelligence, knowledge acquisition is the process of
gathering, selecting, and interpreting information and experiences
to create and maintain knowledge within a specific domain.
• It is a key component of machine learning and knowledge-based
systems.
• There are many different methods of knowledge acquisition,
including rule-based systems, decision trees, artificial neural
networks, and fuzzy logic systems.
• The most appropriate method for a given application depends on
the nature of the problem and the type of data available.
• Rule-based systems are the simplest form of knowledge-based
system.
• They use a set of rules, or heuristics, to make decisions. Decision
trees are another common method, which use a series of if-then-
else statements to arrive at a decision.
 knowledge acquisition
• Artificial neural networks are a more complex form of knowledge-
based system, which mimic the way the human brain learns.
• They are able to learn from data and make predictions based on that
data. Fuzzy logic systems are another type of complex knowledge-
based system, which use fuzzy set theory to make decisions.
• The most important part of knowledge acquisition is the
interpretation of information.
• This is where human expertise is required. Machines are not able to
interpret information in the same way humans can.
• They can only make sense of data if it is presented in a certain way.
• Humans need to select the right data and experiences to create
knowledge.
• They also need to interpret that data correctly. This is where artificial
intelligence can help.
• AI systems can automate the process of knowledge acquisition,
making it faster and more accurate.
Methods of knowledge acquisition
There are a few methods of knowledge acquisition in AI:
1. Expert systems: In this method, experts in a particular field
provide rules and knowledge to a computer system, which can
then be used to make decisions or solve problems in that
domain.
2. Learning from examples: This is a common method used in
machine learning, where a system is presented with a set of
training data, and it “learns” from these examples to generalize
to new data.
3. Natural language processing: This is a method of extracting
knowledge from text data, using techniques like text mining
and information extraction.
Methods of knowledge acquisition
4. Semantic web: The semantic web is a way of
representing knowledge on the internet using
standards like RDF and OWL, which can be
processed by computers.
5. Knowledge representation and reasoning: This
is a method of representing knowledge in a
formal way, using logic or other formalisms,
which can then be used for automated
reasoning.