From Oxford's leading AI researcher comes a fun and accessible tour through the history and future of one of the most cutting edge and misunderstood field in science: Artificial Intelligence

The somewhat ill-defined long-term aim of AI is to build machines that are conscious, self-aware, and sentient; machines capable of the kind of intelligent autonomous action that currently only people are capable of. As an AI researcher with 25 years of experience, professor Mike Wooldridge has learned to be obsessively cautious about such claims, while still promoting an intense optimism about the future of the field. There have been genuine scientific breakthroughs that have made AI systems possible in the past decade that the founders of the field would have hailed as miraculous. Driverless cars and automated translation tools are just two examples of AI technologies that have become a practical, everyday reality in the past few years, and which will have a huge impact on our world.

While the dream of conscious machines remains, Professor Wooldridge believes, a distant prospect, the floodgates for AI have opened. Wooldridge's A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence is an exciting romp through the history of this groundbreaking field--a one-stop-shop for AI's past, present, and world-changing future.

The study of multi-agent systems (MAS) focuses on systems in which many intelligent agents interact with each other. These agents are considered to be autonomous entities such as software programs or robots. Their interactions can either be cooperative (for example as in an ant colony) or selfish (as in a free market economy). This book assumes only basic knowledge of algorithms and discrete maths, both of which are taught as standard in the first or second year of computer science degree programmes. A basic knowledge of artificial intelligence would useful to help understand some of the issues, but is not essential.

The book's main aims are:

• To introduce the student to the concept of agents and multi-agent systems, and the main applications for which they are appropriate
• To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of intelligent agents
• To introduce the main issues surrounding the design of a multi-agent society
• To introduce a number of typical applications for agent technology

After reading the book the student should understand:

• The notion of an agent, how agents are distinct from other software paradigms (e.g. objects) and the characteristics of applications that lend themselves to agent-oriented software
• The key issues associated with constructing agents capable of intelligent autonomous action and the main approaches taken to developing such agents
• The key issues in designing societies of agents that can effectively cooperate in order to solve problems, including an understanding of the key types of multi-agent interactions possible in such systems
• The main application areas of agent-based systems

Over the past decade, rational agency has come to be recognised as a central theme in artificial intelligence. Drawing upon research on rational action and agency in philosophy, logic, game theory, decision theory, and the philosophy of language, this volume represents an advanced, comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of the field of rational agency as it stands today. It covers the philosophical foundations of rational agency, logical and decision-theoretic approaches to rational agency, multi-agent aspects of rational agency (including speech acts, joint plans, and cooperation protocols), and, finally, describes a number of approaches to programming rational agents. Although written from the standpoint of artificial intelligence, this interdisciplinary text will be of interest to researchers in logic, mainstream computer science, the philosophy of rational action and agency, and economics.

This book is based on the second International Workshop on Agent Theories, Architectures, and Languages, held in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI'95 in Montreal, Canada in August 1995.
The 26 papers are revised final versions of the workshop presentations selected from a total of 54 submissions; also included is a comprehensive introduction, a detailed bibliography listing 355 relevant publications, and a subject index. The book is structured into seven sections, reflecting the most current major directions in agent-related research. Together with its predecessor, Intelligent Agents, published as volume 890 in the LNAI series, this book provides a timely and comprehensive state-of-the-art report.

'I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?' Alan Turing (1950)

Part of the ALL-NEW Ladybird Expert series.

This book is for everyone living in the age of Artificial Intelligence. And this is an accessible and authoritative introduction to one of the most important conversations of our time . . .

Written by computer scientist Michael Wooldridge, Artificial Intelligence chronicles the development of intelligent machines, from Turing's dream of machines that think, to today's digital assistants like Siri and Alexa.

AI is not something that awaits us in the future. Inside you'll learn how we have come to rely on embedded AI software and what a world of ubiquitous AI might look like.

What's inside?

- The British mathematician Alan Turing
- Can machines 'understand'?
- Logical and Behavioural AI
- The reality of AI today
- AI tomorrow
- And much more . . .

For an adult readership, the Ladybird Expert series is produced in the same iconic small hardback format pioneered by the original Ladybirds. Each beautifully illustrated book features the first new illustrations produced in the original Ladybird style for nearly forty years.

Over the past decade, rational agency has come to be recognised as a central theme in artificial intelligence. Drawing upon research on rational action and agency in philosophy, logic, game theory, decision theory, and the philosophy of language, this volume represents an advanced, comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of the field of rational agency as it stands today. It covers the philosophical foundations of rational agency, logical and decision-theoretic approaches to rational agency, multi-agent aspects of rational agency (including speech acts, joint plans, and cooperation protocols), and, finally, describes a number of approaches to programming rational agents. Although written from the standpoint of artificial intelligence, this interdisciplinary text will be of interest to researchers in logic, mainstream computer science, the philosophy of rational action and agency, and economics.