1. Search CSC 358/458 5.22.2006

2. Outline Homework #6 Game search States and operators Issues Search techniques DFS, BFS Beam search A* search Alpha-beta search

3. Homework #7 #C with-list-iterator doiter

4. Game Playing How can we automate game playing? One of the first problems tackled by AI research Basic idea represent the "state" of the game set of cards board position moves are changes in game state winning means reaching a particular state defined by the rules

5. Game tree Think of each possible position as a node each possible move as an edge We have a graph structure starting state subsequent states branching for different possible moves terminates with winning (or losing)

6. How to win? Find a path through the tree to a winning state make all the moves along that path But what about the opponent? what about uncertainty? we'll return to these questions in a minute

7. Graph search Game tree search is a special case of graph search lots of other AI problems have been conceptualized the same way Search domains Running Prolog programs each state is an assignment of bindings links are applying rules to generate new bindings Planning and scheduling nodes are states of the world links are operations that can be performed Major subfield of AI

8. Planning States are combinations of predicates Operators may have conditional effects Interleaving of planning and execution replanning

9. What we need Start State Goal State Successors Search Strategy

10. Tree Search 1 2 4567 3

11. Tree Search, cont'd Main question How to order the states?

12. Tree Search Cont’d (defun tree-search (states goal-p successors combiner) (cond ((null states) fail) ((funcall goal-p (first states)) (first states)) (t (tree-search (funcall combiner (funcall successors (first states)) (rest states)) goal-p successors combiner))))

13. Tree Search: Depth First Search Work On The Longest Paths First Backtrack Only When The Current State Has No More Successors (defun depth-first-search (start goal-p successors) (tree-search (list start) goal-p successors #’append))

14. Tree Search: DFS Summary Depth-First Search Is OK In Finite Search Spaces In Infinite Search Spaces, Depth-First Search May Never Terminate

15. Tree Search: Breadth-First Search Search The Tree Layer By Layer (defun prepend (x y) (append y x)) (defun breadth-first-search (start goal-p successors) (tree-search (list start) goal-p successors #’prepend))

16. Tree Search: BFS Summary In Finite Search Spaces, BFS Is Identical To DFS In Infinite Search Spaces, BFS Will Always Find A Solution If It Exists BFS Requires More Space Than DFS

17. Iterative Deepening Search depth first to level n then increase n Seems wasteful but actually is the best method for large spaces of unknown charcteristics the search frontier expands exponentially so it doesn't matter that you're sometimes searching the same (small number of) nodes multiple times

18. Bi-Directional Search Work forwards from start Work backwards from goal Until the two points meet Doesn't work for many game problems How many different checkmate positions are there?

19. Controlling Search Knowledge DFS and BFS do not use knowledge of the domain Distance heuristic in many domains, possible to estimate how far from the goal "stronger" board position choose successor (move) that takes you closest

20. Example Problem: Visit too many nodes, some clearly out of the question

21. Best First Search (defun sorter (cost-fn) #’(lambda (new old) (sort (append new old) #’< :key cost- fn))) (defun best-first-search (start goal-p successors cost-fn) (tree-search (list start) goal-p successors (sorter cost-fn)))

22. Greedy Search Best = closest to goal Problem Isn't guaranteed to find a solution not complete Isn't guaranteed to find the best solution not optimal

23. Greedy example Heuristic: minimize h(n) = “Euclidean distance to destination” Problem: not optimal (through Rimmici Viicea and Pitesti is shorter)

24. A* Search Best = min (path so far + estimated cost to goal) Restriction estimate must never overestimate the cost If so complete optimal

25. Example A*: minimize f(n) = g(n) + h(n)

26. Beam Search Ever-increasing queue of states under consideration Can be very large O(b n ) where b is the branch factor and n is the depth Completeness is required if there is only one solution we don't want to throw out the state that leads to it What if there are many good solutions many possible checkmate positions discard some unpromising states Beam search keep no more than k states of the queue if too many, discard the ones with highest f(n)

27. Beam Search Cont’d (defun beam-search (start goal-p sucessors cost-fn beam-width) (tree-search (list start) goal-p succecssors #’(lambda (old new) (let ((sorted (funcall (sorter cost-fn) old new))) (if (> beam-width (length sorted)) sorted (subseq sorted 0 beam-width))))))

28. Improving Beam Search What if the search fails? try different beam widths (defun iter-wide-search (start goal-p successors &key (width 1) (max 100)) (unless (> width max) (or (beam-search start goal-p successors cost-fn width) (iter-wide-search start goal-p successors cost-fn :width (+ width 1) :max max))))

29. (Practically) Infinite Search What if the goal state is so far away that search won't find it? chess = 10 43 states greater than the number of atoms in the universe Pick a search depth estimate the "value" of the position at that depth treat that as the "result" of the search Search then becomes finding the best board position after k moves easy enough to store the best node so far and the path (move) to it

30. What about the opponent? Obviously, our opponent will not pick moves on the path to our winning game What move to predict? Worst case scenario the opponent will do what's best for him To win we need a strategy that will succeed even if the opponent plays his best

31. Mini-max assumption Assume that the opponent values the game state the opposite from you V me (state) = -V opp (state) At alternate nodes choose the state with maximum f for me or, choose the state with minimum f for the opponent

32. Mini-max algorithm Build tree with two types of nodes max nodes my move min nodes opp move Perform depth-first search, with iterative deepening Evaluate the board position at each node on a max node, use the max of all children as the value of the parent on a min node, use the min of all children as the value of the parent when search is complete the move that leads to the max child of the current node is the one to take Anytime this is an "anytime" algorithm you can stop the search at any time and you have a best estimate of your move (to some depth)

33. Problem I may waste time searching nodes that I would never use A* doesn't help since a position may be bad in one move but better after 3 sacrifice

34. Alpha-beta pruning reduces the size of the search space without changing the answer Simple idea don't consider any moves that are worse than ones you already know about

35. Animated example http://sern.ucalgary.ca/courses/CPSC/ 533/W99/presentations/L2_5B_Lima_ Neitz/abpruning.html

36. What about chance? In a game of chance there is a random element in the game process Backgammon the player can only make moves that use the outcome of the dice roll How do I know what my opponent will do? I don't but I can have an expectation

37. Expectiminimax The idea Game theoretic utility calculation Expected value = sum of all outcome values * the likelihood of occurrence The value of a node is not simply copied from the "best" child but summed over all possible children

38. Algorithm Tree has three types of nodes max nodes min nodes chance nodes Chance nodes calculate the expectation associated with all of the children

39. http://sern.ucalgary.ca/courses/cpsc/5 33/W99/presentations/L2_5B_Lima_N eitz/chance.html

40. Killer heuristic One additional optimization works well in chess Often a move that is really good or really bad Will be really good or bad in multiple board positions Example a move that captures my queen if my queen is under attack the move in which the opponent takes my queen will be his best move in most board positions except the positions in which I move the queen out of attack If a move leads to a really good or really bad position try it first when searching more likely to produce an extreme value that helps alpha- beta search

41. No class next week Progress report due tonight 1 or 2 pages of text saying where you are Class on 6/5 CLOS