Third edition of Artificial Intelligence: foundations of computational agents, Cambridge University Press, 2023 is now available (including the full text).
1.5 Dimensions of Complexity
Agents acting in environments range in complexity from thermostats to companies with multiple goals acting in competitive environments. A number of dimensions of complexity exist in the design of intelligent agents. These dimensions may be be considered separately but must be combined to build an intelligent agent. These dimensions define a design space of AI; different points in this space can be obtained by varying the values of the dimensions.
Here we present nine dimensions: modularity, representation scheme, planning horizon, sensing uncertainty, effect uncertainty, preference, number of agents, learning, and computational limits. These dimensions give a coarse division of the design space of intelligent agents. There are many other design choices that must be made to build an intelligent agent.
