1.
Exercise 1.3
(10%)
Are reflex actions (such as flinching from a hot stove) rational? Are they intelligent?
2.
Exercise 1.15, but instead of five contests choose one or two. (50%)
Various subfields of AI have held contests by defining a standard task and inviting researchers to do their best. Examples include the DARPA Grand Challenge for robotic cars, The International Planning Competition, the Robocup robotic soccer league, the TREC information retrieval event, and contests in machine translation, speech recognition. Investigate five of these contests, and describe the progress made over the years. To what degree have the contests advanced toe state of the art in AI? Do what degree do they hurt the field by drawing energy away from new ideas?
Exercise 2.4 (40%)
For each of the following activities, give a PEAS description of the task environment and characterize it in terms of the properties listed in Section 2.3.2.
Playing soccer.
Exploring the subsurface oceans of Titan.
Shopping for used AI books on the Internet. Playing a tennis match.
Practicing tennis against a wall. Performing a high jump.
Knitting a sweater.
Bidding on an item at an auction.
