The AI Terminology

The Al Terminology

1) Percept

The term percept refers to the agent's perceptual inputs at any given instant. Examples -

1) A human agent percepts "Bird flying in the sky "through eyes and takes i (photograph)".

2) A robotic agent perceive "Temperature of a boiler" through cameras and takes the control action.

2) Percept Sequence

An agent's percept sequence is the complete history of everything the agent has ever perceived. Agent has choice of action at any given instant and it can depend on the entire percept sequence agent has recorded. The change in the perception forms a historical case.

For example -

A robotic agent monitoring temperature of a boiler will be sensing it and keep on maintaining the percept sequence. This percept sequence will help robotic agent to know how temperature fluctuates and action will be taken depending on percept sequence for controlling temperature.

3) Agent Function

It is defined as mathematical function which maps each and every possible percept sequence to a possible action.

This function has input as percept sequence and it gives output as action.

Agent function can be represented in a tabular form.

Example -

ATM machine is a agent, it display menu for withdrawing money, when ATM card is inserted. When provided with percept sequence (1) A transaction type and (2) PIN number, then only user gets cash.

4) Agent Program

When we want to develop a agent program we need to tabulate all the agent functions that describes any given agent. This can practically lead to infinite functions hence we need to put bound on the length of percept sequence that we need to consider. This table of functions of percept sequences and action will be external characteristics of the agent where as internally agent function for an intelligent agent will be implement by an agent program.

Note:

Agent function is an abstract mathematical description.