Search in Problem Solving:

If Artificial intelligence I may inform the other sciences about anything, it is about problem solving and, in specific, how to find solutions to problems. Most of AI research may be explained in terms of specifying a problem, defining a search space that should have a solution to the problem, choosing  a search strategy and getting an agent to use the strategy to find a solution.

If you are hired as an Artificial intelligence programmer /researcher, you will be expected to come armed with a battery of Artificial intelligence techniques, many of which we cover later in the course. Though, possibly the most important skill you will bring to the job is to effectively seek out the best way of turning some vague specifications into actual problems requiring Artificial intelligence techniques. Specifying those problems in the most effective way will be very important if you want your Artificial intelligence agent to find the solutions in a reasonable time. In this chapter , we look at how to identify a search problem.