5 Propositions and Inference

The third edition of Artificial Intelligence: foundations of computational agents, Cambridge University Press, 2023 is now available (including full text).

5.9 Review

The following are the main points you should have learned from this chapter:

  • Representing constraints in terms of propositions often enables constraint reasoning to be more efficient.

  • A definite clause knowledge base can be used to specify atomic clauses and rules about a domain when there is no uncertainty or ambiguity.

  • Given a set of statements that are claimed to be true about a domain, the logical consequences characterize what else must be true.

  • A sound and complete proof procedure can be used to determine the logical consequences of a knowledge base.

  • Bottom-up and top-down proof procedures can be proven to be sound and complete.

  • Proof by contradiction can be used to make inference from a Horn clause knowledge base.

  • Negation as failure can be used to make conclusions assuming complete knowledge.

  • Abduction can be used to explain observations.

  • Consistency-based diagnosis and abductive diagnosis are alternative methods for troubleshooting systems.

  • A causal model predicts the effect of interventions.