Introduction to Artificial Intelligence: Second, Enlarged Edition

I was thinking of purchasing an introductory book on AI for my 14 year old son since he was so interested in robots and automation. Apparently, this book is beyond him. I am not sure whether there is an AI book for children.

Having last been printed in the mid 80's some of the information is getting a little dated at this point, but for anyone new to the subject it is a very good read and an excellent introduction to the feild of AI.

I actually picked up this book at the discount bin at a local bookstore. I had always been interested in A.I research, and this deal was irresistable. However, I think this book is worth alot more, and provides more insight into the field than many of the current popular books on the subject. This book basically goes into A.I research and leaves alot of the philosophical issues at a minimum. Basically you can look at this as a real text book about the subject of A.I. By my expirience, it isn't easy to find outside of the popular science market. The topics that this book covers is extensive. The first few chapters go into subjects like Game Theory, and the problem-state models of A.I. He also gives a very extensive overview of the contruction of the human brain and its paralells to finite state machines. What I found particularly interesting was his coverage of many Turning Machines. Later, the author takes you into more rigorous examples dealing with problems of Theorem proving. And definitely one of the most interesting chapters was his coverage of natural languages. I have owned this book for about 2 years, and although I do not read it faithfully everyday, I do find myself reading this book extensively for periods of 2-3 months. The material will demand a great deal of work on the behalf of the reader. As this book deals with many abstract concepts in mathematics that can be confusing to the untrained reader. Admitedly, i had to stop reading this book for a little while and take 4 months to get to a functional level of linear algebra, before I could fully comprehend the tranformation he showed chapter 6. This is a must buy for anyone who wants to get their feet wet in the field of A.I. And with such a small price tag, you really cant lose.

I was searching for a book that will introduce me to artificial intelligence concepts; and although this book seemed old (1985), I bought it because of it's low price. Then when I opened it for the first time I was amazed how great it is. It worths a whole lot more. I soon found out that some concepts are for ever, and no matter how old they will be current in the future.

This book has really good coverage of various topics. It even gives a tuple definition of cellular automata on page 348 and an example using that definition for Conway's Game of Life on page 349! A great value!