Artificial Intelligence

Production System
•
Characteristics
What is a Production System?
• It consists of
o A set of rules, each consisting of a left side(a pattern) that
determines the applicability of the rule and a right side that
describes the operation to be performed if the rule is applied.
o One of more knowledge/databases that contain whatever
information is appropriate for the particular task. Some parts of
the database may be permanent. Others may be for the current
problem only.
o A control strategy that specifies the order in which the rules will be
compared to the database and a way of resolving the conflicts
that arise when several rules match to one.
o A Rule applier.

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 Artificial Intelligence

Production System
•
Characteristics
Production Systems
o Examples
 The Chess Example
 The Jar Problem
 A basic production system language
 General Problem Solving architectures
o To summarize ( Steps to solve a problem)
 First reduce the problem to a precise statement, that can be
done by defining the problem’s State Space.
 Searching for a path through the space from Initial to Final
State.
 Model the process of solving the problem as a Production
System.

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 Artificial Intelligence

Control Strategies
• Which rule to apply next?
• More than one rule will have its left side match the current state.

• The first requirement of a good control strategy is that it causes

motion
• The second requirement of a good control strategy is that it be
systematic.
o Construct a tree and weigh out the various options at each step.
o This is where BFS and DFS comes into use
o Heuristic Search can also be used
[The methods mentioned above will be discussed at a later stage]

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 Artificial Intelligence

Production System
Characteristics
• Production Systems are a good way to describe the operations that
can be performed in a search for a solution to a problem.
• Two questions we might reasonably ask at this point are :
o Can production system, like problems, be described by a set of
characteristics that shed some light on how they can easily be
implemented?
o If so, what relationship are there between problem types and the
types of production systems best suited to solving this problem?

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 Artificial Intelligence

Production System
Characteristics
• A monotonic production system is a production system in which the
application of a rule never prevents the later application of another
rule that could also have been applied at the time the first rule was
selected.
• A non monotic production system is one in which this is not true.

• A partially commutative production system is a production system

with the property that if the application of a particular sequence of
rules transforms state x into y, then any permutation of those rules
that is allowable, also transforms state x into state y.
• A commutative production system is a production system that is both
monotonic & partially commutative.

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 Artificial Intelligence

Production System
Partially
Characteristics
Monotonoic Non monotonic
Theorem Proving Robot Navigation
• The significance
Commutative of these categories of production system lies in the
relationship between the categories and appropriate implementation
Not Partially
strategies. Chemical SynthesisBridge
• Ans to Commutative
statement 2 : For any solvable problem, there exist an infinite
number of production systems that describe ways to find solutions.
o Some will be more natural or efficient than others.
o Any problem that can be solved by any production system can be
solved by a commutative one, but it may be practically useless.

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 Artificial Intelligence

Production System
Characteristics
• Partially commutative, monotonic production systems are useful for
solving ignorable problems.
• They can implemented without the ability to backtrack to previous
states, when it is discovered that an incorrect path has been
followed.
• They are useful for problems where things do not change, new things
are created.
• Non-monotonic, partially commutative systems, are useful for
problems in which changes occur but an be reversed and in which
order of operations is not critical.
• Production Systems that are not partially commutative are useful for
many problems in which irreversible changes occur.

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