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Artificial Intelligence
Please Read Notes: Brand New, International Softcover Edition, Printed in black and white pages, Book name, contents, and author are exactly same as Hardcover Edition.
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First published January 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 6 reviews
December 5, 2012
The standard AI text is Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Russell and Norvig, but I'd like to argue that Elaine Rich's AI book is better in many ways.
First, it is shorter, and it covers less. While that makes it less suitable as a desk reference than the Russell/Norvig book, it makes it perhaps better as an introductory text, as it's a bit more focused, more content to cover "core" AI rather than comprehensively cover every aspect of the field like Russell/Norvig.
Second, and this may run counter to what a lot of people may say, but frankly the Rich book is simply more readable. She's a better writer overall, and lays out the material in a way that I think is more instructive and more informative. I think that, as an introductory text, this book works much better than Russell/Norvig. Despite Russell/Norvig devoting more overall text to explaining any given topic, I think Rich's coverage of the same material tends to be clearer.
There's no denying that nothing is going to knock Russell/Norvig from it's throne any time soon, but I have to suggest for any professor teaching an introductory AI class to at least consider Rich's book, which as a student I found helped me with the material much more than A Modern Approach.
I've seen a lot of complaints about this book being overly formal, grounded in theoretical material too much. As a theory-focused student, I actually liked that, and I think a lot of the complaints are from students who just wanted to build Quake bots or something. Besides, Russell/Norvig is just as formal, if not more so.
First, it is shorter, and it covers less. While that makes it less suitable as a desk reference than the Russell/Norvig book, it makes it perhaps better as an introductory text, as it's a bit more focused, more content to cover "core" AI rather than comprehensively cover every aspect of the field like Russell/Norvig.
Second, and this may run counter to what a lot of people may say, but frankly the Rich book is simply more readable. She's a better writer overall, and lays out the material in a way that I think is more instructive and more informative. I think that, as an introductory text, this book works much better than Russell/Norvig. Despite Russell/Norvig devoting more overall text to explaining any given topic, I think Rich's coverage of the same material tends to be clearer.
There's no denying that nothing is going to knock Russell/Norvig from it's throne any time soon, but I have to suggest for any professor teaching an introductory AI class to at least consider Rich's book, which as a student I found helped me with the material much more than A Modern Approach.
I've seen a lot of complaints about this book being overly formal, grounded in theoretical material too much. As a theory-focused student, I actually liked that, and I think a lot of the complaints are from students who just wanted to build Quake bots or something. Besides, Russell/Norvig is just as formal, if not more so.
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March 9, 2021Good book
August 11, 2020
It's a bit out of date (1983), but it's also a good idea to re-read old books to see if any old ideas have been overlooked.
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March 17, 2013comment
September 24, 2013
An old college text of mine. I keep a copy to remind myself how bad the state of A.I. was in the early 90s.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 6 reviews