Artificial Intelligence presents a practical guide to AI, including agents, machine learning and problem-solving simple and complex domains.

Build your own intelligent agent system... Intelligent agent technology is a tool of modern computer science that can be used to engineer complex computer programmes that behave rationally in dynamic and changing environments. Applications range from small programmes that intelligently search the Web buying and selling goods via electronic commerce, to autonomous space probes. This powerful technology is not widely used, however, as developing intelligent agent software requires high levels of training and skill. The authors of this book have developed and tested a methodology and tools for developing intelligent agent systems. With this methodology (Prometheus) developers can start agent-oriented designs and implementations easily from scratch saving valuable time and resources. Developing Intelligent Agent Systems not only answers the questions “what are agents?” and “why are they useful?” but also the crucial question: “how do I design and build intelligent agent systems?” The book covers everything a practitioner needs to know to begin to effectively use this technology - including an introduction to the notion of agents, a description of the concepts involved, and a software engineering methodology. Read on for: a practical step-by-step introduction to designing and building intelligent agent systems. a full life-cycle methodology for developing intelligent agent systems covering specification, analysis, design and implementation of agents. PDT: Prometheus Design Tool – software support for the Prometheus design process. the example of an electronic bookstore to illustrate the design process throughout the book. Electronic resources including the Prometheus Design Tool (PDT), can be found at: http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/agents/prometheus This book is aimed at industrial software developers, software engineers and at advanced undergraduate students. It assumes knowledge of basic software engineering but does not require knowledge of Artificial Intelligence or of mathematics. Familiarity with Java will help in reading the examples in chapter 10.

This is the first comprehensive introduction to multiagent systems and contemporary distributed artificial intelligence that is suitable as a textbook.

In this book, Jacques Ferber has brought together all the recent developments in the field of multi-agent systems - an area that has seen increasing interest and major developments over the last few years. The author draws on work carried out in various disciplines, including information technology, sociology and cognitive psychology to provide a coherent and instructive picture of the current state-of-the-art. The book introduces and defines the fundamental concepts that need to be understood, clearly describes the work that has been done, and invites readers to reflect upon the possibilities of the future.

This monograph presents a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey on approaches to the design of intelligent agents. On the theoretical side, the author identifies a set of general requirements for autonomous interacting agents and provides an essential step towards understanding the principles of intelligent agents. On the practical side, the novel agent architecture InteRRaP is introduced: the detailed description and evaluation of this architecture is an ideal guideline and case study for software engineers or researchers faced with the task of building an agent system. The book uniquely bridges the gap between theory and practice; it addresses active and novice researchers as well as practitioners interested in applicable agent technology.

Advances in narrow artificial intelligence make possible agentive systems that do things directly for their users (like, say, an automatic pet feeder). They deliver on the promise of user-centered design, but present fresh challenges in understanding their unique promises and pitfalls. Designing Agentive Technology provides both a conceptual grounding and practical advice to unlock agentive technology’s massive potential.

A comprehensive introduction to new approaches in artificial intelligence and robotics that are inspired by self-organizing biological processes and structures. New approaches to artificial intelligence spring from the idea that intelligence emerges as much from cells, bodies, and societies as it does from evolution, development, and learning. Traditionally, artificial intelligence has been concerned with reproducing the abilities of human brains; newer approaches take inspiration from a wider range of biological structures that that are capable of autonomous self-organization. Examples of these new approaches include evolutionary computation and evolutionary electronics, artificial neural networks, immune systems, biorobotics, and swarm intelligence—to mention only a few. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the emerging field of biologically inspired artificial intelligence that can be used as an upper-level text or as a reference for researchers. Each chapter presents computational approaches inspired by a different biological system; each begins with background information about the biological system and then proceeds to develop computational models that make use of biological concepts. The chapters cover evolutionary computation and electronics; cellular systems; neural systems, including neuromorphic engineering; developmental systems; immune systems; behavioral systems—including several approaches to robotics, including behavior-based, bio-mimetic, epigenetic, and evolutionary robots; and collective systems, including swarm robotics as well as cooperative and competitive co-evolving systems. Chapters end with a concluding overview and suggested reading.