Customer Reviews

Artificial Intelligence Illuminated

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I recently completed the abbreviated January term class at my college where I taught Artificial Intelligence (AI) using this book. The course was an experimental one with the goal being to eventually add it to our regular offerings. While I found this book adequate for the abbreviated session, I will not use it when AI is offered during a regular term.

I found the depth of coverage of most of the topics to be less than what I will need in a full semester course. The topics in the book are exactly what I would cover in such a course, but the examples are limited and too rare in appearance. For example, finite automata are introduced on pages 366-368 but the only example is the simplest possible automaton, a two state acceptor of an even number of a's.

Some of the notations were confusing and quite frankly unnecessarily so. A few additional words of explanation would have prevented a simple concept from appearing so complex. The pseudo-code used to demonstrate alpha-beta pruning was close to incomprehensible, although the example was simple. These examples and many others just made the book too hard to read.

This is an excellent book. It covers all aspects of AI in a friendly, clear manner. Despite being written as an undergraduate textbook it is easily accessible to someone like myself who is not doing a course in computing (or anything else for that matter).

The subject manner is handled well with enough diagrams and examples to ensure that you understand even the more esoteric concepts. It is presented in a manner that is enjoyable to read with many asides into the interesting applications in the real world (such as using AI in games programs like chequers and chess).

All in all I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in AI from any perspective, whether you are studying in a university or are just interested in learning more about AI in general.

My undergraduate AI class used this textbook. The writing was never dry and provided lots of information for someone new to the field of AI.

This was the textbook for a college AI course I took. I wouldn't recommend this book for an introduction to AI. Most topic discussions were cursory and required additional online research. There were very few examples to illustrate the subject material. Those that were provided were very confusing. I actually learned more from the internet searches I ended up doing than from this textbook. I was looking forward to this class, but this textbook did nothing to make my learning experience any better.

A big fan of the COMPUTER SCIENCE ILLUMINATED text, I had high hopes for this as a good text for my undergrad class on A.I.. I was sorely disappointed; this text is far too shallow for even a middle-level undergrad course. It also contains several errors, although that may be expected of a first edition.

Excellent and outstanding service.

Thank you for time and business.

V/R

INTULECT

It's new one, which has a great quality. And very quick delivery. Perfect purchase to me.