INF2D: Week 7: Uncertainty and Rationality
This week we will continue to study symbolic planning. This is in section 19:
19: Monitoring, re-planning and hierarchical plans
We then change tack. Symbolic planning provides agents with some limited means to cope with uncertainty; limited because it doesn't support quantifying uncertainty, which is required if you want to assess risk when deciding what to do. Furthermore, symbolic planning problems assume that the goal is already defined. But this ignores situations where the agent faces a dilemma, in that in all likelihood, it is impossible to achieve everything it desires. So, in situations where some factors are more likely than others, some things are more likely to be achievable than others, and you can't have everything you want, how do you choose what to do? The focus of the rest of this course is to address this question. This week, we will start by introducing probabilities, preferences, and how they combine to define rational behaviour.
20: Uncertainty, Preferences and Rationality
21: Probabilities and Bayes' Rule
We will be building on these initial concepts for the rest of the course.
If there is anything you don't understand, then you have several options:
- Post a question on piazza;
- Ask a question at the in-person lecture; and/or
- Ask your tutor