Artificial Intelligence Books

This book is written mainly for those who love to play (and beat) their silicon buddies. There are lot of unusual examples how to play vs computer programs (mainly Fritz 5 and 6, unfortunately), whitch can do the job. There is also the fine intro written by Kasparov himself, and one chapter about chess helping the mentally disabled kids, whitch is nice. But that is it! You wouldnt get any info about chess strategy and tactics that can improve your game at all. The book is of limited use.

Over the years, I have read many, many chess books. Dr. Pecci's is the first to keep me up at night - yes, just like a great thriller! This is truly a terrific book. It is extremely well thought out and brilliantly written. I was having all sorts of problems beating Fritz (6 or 7) as well as Shredder 6, on their highest levels. After reading and studying Dr. Pecci's book - I now kick butt!! The ideas put forth in Chess: A Psychiatrist Matches Wits with Fritz, also works well against opponents that eat and get angry. And they do get angry when you beat them with a King Side Attack with your entire force when theirs is split between offence and defense ý on opposite sides of the board. Let me also mention that the book is put together like a $100 coffee table book. It is made of the finest paper, is heavy weighted and a beautiful book to behold, even if you know nothing about E4 or Nf3. If you like chess, get this book ý youýll love it!

Create a V barrage and attack kingside with a pawn storm, this is the idea. Birds opening and variations of the English are perfect according to the author for such an attack based on the computer grabbing material on the other side. It's an interesting idea and the author pursues it through a variety of openings with every move pictured. But let's be clear, this is not a book to learn from. Readers will not gain an understanding of the game beyond Pecci's basic strategic idea outlined above. It's an idea that fails quickly if you don't mate the machine. Fritz 7 blew many of the book's ideas out of the water fairly easily so I wonder how practical the book remains given that Fritz 7 (according to Chessbase and to Kramnik) is stronger by far than version 6. Kasparov's foreward basically says, "interesting idea." but not much more.
If you are interested in computers and want to see how this guy beat them, well it's a fun read. If you are rated under 1800 and want to LEARN, then head for another book.

I am class A USCF (around 1900) chess player who is usually crushed by Fritz. Yesterday, I picked this book up in a bookstore and looked at it for about 30 minutes. I found it quite interesting.

Today, the first game I played with Fritz 6 ended in a crushing 25 move defeat for the Silicon giant. I am running a very fast computer with a gig of RAM. I haven't played any other games yet....

Fritz 6 - ,T
Level=Blitz:5'. MyTown, 27.11.2002

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 Nbd7 4.e3 e6 5.Bd3 Be7 6.Nbd2 0-0 7.Ne5 c5 8.c3 c4 9.Bc2 Qa5 10.g4 Nxe5 11.dxe5 Nd7 12.h4 Qb5 13.Rb1 Qa5 14.g5 Qxa2 15.h5 Nc5 16.g6 h6 17.Bxh6 gxh6 18.gxf7+ Rxf7 19.Rg1+ Kh8 20.Qg4 Bg5 21.f4 Rg7 22.fxg5 Rxg5 23.Qf4 Rxg1+ 24.Kf2 Rxb1 [24...Rg7 25.Qf8+ Rg8 26.Qxh6#;
24...Nd3+ 25.Bxd3 cxd3 26.Rxg1 Bd7 (26...Kh7 27.Qf7+ Kh8 28.Rg8#) 27.Qxh6#] 25.Qf8# 1-0

I have read both this book and Mr. Andrews' "Pandora's Game". I feel strongly that this not a "real" novel but a amatuer effort and not, as is, worth the readers time. For a full explanation, please refer to my review of his other book "Pandora's Game", it is all there is black and white.

I read "Pandora's Game" a couple of months ago, and so when I was ready for more books, I was sure to include Christopher Andrews on my must read list. And unlike my disappointment in Gary Brandner's follow up to "The Howling," I am pleased to have quite the opposite experience with Andrews' "Dream Parlor."

The used copy I bought off of Ebay is pretty well read. It's a little beat up and many of the pages have been dog eared (all of the movie photo pages). All I can say is that I hope the previous reader enjoyed it as much as I did.

"Dream Parlor" is the novelization of a movie by the same name, which was co-written by Andrews. I looked it up at Blockbuster, but they don't have it for rent yet. I am SERIOUSLY considering buying it here at Amazon, because I absolutely LOVED this book!

The character of Elija Barrett is completely identifiable. He is a hero in the most HUMAN sense of the word. He stumbles, he falls, he's too hard on himself, and he doesn't seem to realize just how much good he accomplishes or how much it means to those around him (the lesson of a parent setting the bar too high for their child might not have been intentional, but it struck a deep chord with me). Dr. Corbit is an equally human villain. In fact, most of the supporting characters are given their moments in the spot light, which made them more than just regular plot pieces.

The movie stills are effective. They are not just random publicity shots clumped all together in the center of the book, but are sprinkled throughout the story, giving the reader a solid visual to go along with that particular passage of the book.

Not that extra visuals were needed. Andrews' writing is up another notch here. In "Pandora's Game," he used switching POV as an interesting technique. Here, the frequent interplay between the dreams and the waking world is equally involving.

For the first time since returning to reading and writing these reviews, I cannot think of a single drawback or flaw in this book. When push comes to shove, I think I'm still probably a bigger Dean R. Koontz fan, but standing on its own merits, I am pleased to give "Dream Parlor" my first 5 stars! And I am looking forward to "Paranormals" next.

Christopher Andrews has a way with words. He will keep you motivated to turn the page from the moment you start reading this excellent adaptation from the screenplay. I look forward to seeing the movie. This book is captivating! Get your hands on one now!

Andrews is great at visually describing his scenes, which in this case should be no surprise, as this is apparently the novelization of a film. Having pictures from the movie helps bring the reader even further into the gloomy world that he has created. In our world of credit cards and numbered IDs, the concept of the Identification Chip is all-too realistic. It's a thought-provoking story. Now I want to see the movie.

Recounting in successive biographic episodes the ultimately pathetic efforts of men to build, with their own hands, artificial humans, Gaby Wood offers a uniquely female perspective. Especially since the mechanicals were often meant to be women. Although very learned, the author does not aim at an engineering evaluation. Rather, the stories she tells will elicit in psychologically sensitive readers a mixture of laughter and horror. As was the case with the audiences in front of which these creatures were presented, readers will first be fascinated but then will turn away in revulsion.

This book is all over the map. Reading along you discover a number of very interesting facts about early robotics, cinema, toy manufacture and circus life. The facts are never brought together in any meaningful way. There seems to be a thread that can be constructed from the journey from the initial attempts at artifical life in the early Age of Enlightenment to the modern world of robotic manufacturing and artifical intellegence. This thread is never investigated in this book. It is actually a series of disjointed tales all dealing with the perception of "life" in various intellectual climes. It just doesn't seem to come together into any sort of intelectually satisfying way.

Edison's Eve (Edison's attempt to create a successful talking doll) is both the title of Gaby Wood's book and one of the centrepiece chapters of this journey on the quest for mechanical life. Other chapters concern the Doll Family of midgets, the movies of Melies, the automatons of Vaucanson and the deception of the chess playing Turk (not an actual automaton). These pieces do not always blend together smoothly but the author works very hard to connect all the dots. On their own, though, each chapter is fascinating and filled with memorable anecdotes and will have the reader looking at the world in a different way. An enjoyable read.

This is a great book for anyone interested in automata - and that includes computer people interested in artificial language, philosophers interested in what makes us human, cultural anthropologists interested in the interaction of humans and machines, and poets interested in all of the above. If you like this, try also The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous
Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine by Tom Standage. Equally strange & pleasurable.

Gives a useful overview in an easy to read digestible tome hence ideal if HCI is a subcomponent of a course you are taking - as it is for me. Recommended for everybody who is involved in professional software development. It's a small book and less that 200 pages at that so hardly onerous and you really ought to be familiar with this stuff.

I am about to pursue a degree program and human-computer interaction is one of the areas of study.

This book has given me an excellent introduction to the subject area. It was very easy and simple reading which gave me the "ESSENCE" of the subject area. Its layout and style would also prove useful for revision just before examinations. All that would be required of me now is to acquire a book that has case studies to build upon this foundation.

I was never aware that there was such an area of study called Human-Computer Interaction. This book has really highlighted the fact that while we may know about system analysis and design we tend to forget some of the "HUMAN" aspects of the user. We design things with the attitude that "the user has to get with the times".

I would recommend this book for reading even by novices.

This book reads like it was simply transcribed from tape recordings of lectures. I closed my eyes and I almost felt like I was sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a lecture hall in Southpark, England. Really, very little effort was made to smooth out the prose. More importantly, the book offers little in the way of insight into HCI. Perhaps this is because this discipline doesn't really have much to offer; I'll reserve judgment on that until I find a better book.

This book starts out with a fairly interesting discussion about memory, vision, and hearing, but then makes essentially no connection between these early chapters and what follows. Except for the Earth-shaking insights that users can't remember a list of more than seven random things, and some people are color blind, etc. there isn't much actionable information that will help you design a better UI.

I suppose the chapters on user testing were somewhat helpful in understanding what HCI professionals need to do to evaluate user satisfaction, but overall the book left me still searching for a better text. At this point I'd say the best book on UI design I've seen so far is Cooper's "About Face."

While there are lots of HCI books around, many concentrate on the theory and recent areas of academic research.

Faulkner, however, endeavours to gently introduce relevant aspects of practical and theoretical HCI.

The book requires no previous or specialist knowledge. The aim is to make HCI skills a part of the general software engineering skill-set that the technical project teams possess.

HCI can be viewed as a specialist skill, but only when it is part of the generic engineering lifecycles will it make its true impact.

With this in mind Faulkner has put together a book that can key you into cconcepts and how they are realised, in quick and simple format.

Although this is not as detailed as some other books on usability engineering, it is not written for that purpose.

It is suitable not only for computer personnel who wish to add HCI to their own projects but also for managers who need to work with usability engineers, entry-level students and possibly end-users who will be required to participate in the usability engineering cycle.

Fuzzy logic results from probable classifications. Fuzzy logic is about classification. Words are used to build context. Machines must follow rules that humans find intuitive. For example what is an oval. A person can be shown a few examples of an oval and know instinctive which shapes are oval. Fuzzy rules, such as, convex, continueous, closed, etc, probabilities must pattern match to product an action that confirms the object is oval.

Mycin is an expert system with both an inference engine and a knowledge base engine. Mycin uses a fuzzy logic inference engine and derives a best solution through a series of questions and answers. In the 1970's Mycin was used to advise physicians on the treatment of bacterial infections of the blood and meningitis. Mycin uses information about specific symptons and the outcomes of laboratory tests then recommends a certain course of antibotics. The system outputs sentences but the user inputs words. Mycin asks facts about a specific patient. The inference engine has a series of rules and each rule has an action. When a rule is activated the pattern part matches the database. If a pattern match occurs an action results. More questions can result from actions, a backward chaining expert system.

I enjoyed the approach here. The author uses simple, rather concrete examples that allow one to see how fuzzy logic systems work. With the shareware given here it also shows that such systems don't take a lot to construct or work with. As one reviewer says the book doesn't have much on the mathematical theory behind fuzzy logic systems, but the author meants such as a practical approach. And the mathematical theory definitely works as much too much to explain in a work like this. Additionally, the main advantage of using fuzzy systems works as that you don't have to use so much math and bury everything in equations and cryptic symbols. This sort of example makes it easier to see this and work with it.
The knowledge builder shows some ideas as to how one can generate if-then rules in a simple fashion. The decision maker makes the program practically. And the fuzzy cognitive map shows you how fuzzy logic systems can apply to scientific modeling easily.

Not a bad intro to Fuzzy if you know nothing about it and the few real world examples showed me that Fuzzy Logic can be used successfully. But the work the authors have you do with the shareware is too difficult to follow. The results often didn't match up to the book's section and i was left confused. This book is very light in fuzzy theory and left me without knowing how to use fuzzy logic in the real world.

If you're interested in an overview of the subject of fuzzy logic this book may be adequate for your need. It is primarily a manual on how to use the shareware version of the software which is provided. I found this book inadequate in explaining the theory behind fuzzy logic

Adami's book is the first comprehensive review of issues pertinent to the field of artificial life. The book is a textbook based on his lectures at CalTech. Some of the topics are a bit brief (Turing machines are summarized in four pages) but that is to be expected for a book whose goal is to integrate concepts from the fields of biology, chemistry, statistics, computer science, information science, etc. I found the book fascinating and Chris includes a CD-rom and several chapters on the Avida simulation developed at CalTech. There are numerous references and problems at the end of each chapter.

This is the ONLY book I have seen which brings together all the many and various strands which are essential to the exciting new subjects arising currently around the question: What is Life? It is a stunning tour de force of the basic knowledge you need to possess to work in the areas of A-life or biological complexity.

I should warn: it's not a book I could read through in an afternoon, by any means. At times the descriptions are a little cryptic, so that I had to work at understanding what was being said. But the effort I had to put in was always rewarded with greater understanding. Thank you, Chris Adami.

I bought this book to understand the mathematics and physics in A-Life and Complexity. Instead I found this book very long winded and difficult to comprehend exactly what was trying to be said. The content and layout of the book is great, just wish a better writer had been the author of this book. Lots of fancy, big words that are not needed to get the basic points across. Very hard to understand what is being said. It takes smarts and skill to explain complicated, abstract ideas in a meaningful manner. This book does not do that. I wish it did!

Adami demonstrates how to use the tools of artificial life to conduct pure scientific research. A very clear and readable textbook on the subject, Adami makes me want to go back to graduate school. Here is a chance to take an introductory course in an exciting field of research that is truely table-top science. I loved the book and I didn't even use the CD and software that came with it.

Reviewed by Vicky Burkholder
on 07/13/2008

I said in a review of a different anthology that reviewing an anthology of short stories has to be one of the hardest things a reviewer can do, especially if the stories are all written by different authors. My previous statement holds true. Some of the authors in this anthology include S. Andrew Swann, Brendan Dubois, Loren Coleman, Rick Hautala, Bill Fawcett, Ed Gorman, William Keith, and more.

In this book, we are given fifteen different stories by fifteen different authors but with one theme uniting them all: man vs. machine. This book is hard science fiction. There are no feel-good, warm fuzzies here. These stories explore the questions of technology and our future - what happens if technology becomes too big, or if it dies. Like all anthologies, there were some stories I liked, some I didn't care much for, but not because of the writing. Each story is well crafted and well-written. Overall, the tales were very good.

If you don't have a lot of time to read, anthologies are a good place to go. Each story is complete and is good for a quick read when you don't have time for a novel. If you liked the Terminator movies, you'll love these stories. They're a must read for the hard science fiction reader.

This book has the problem that many theme anthologies do: the prime criterion is the theme, not the quality of the story, and many (most) of the stories feel dashed-off, cookie-press, run-of-the-mill. None of them are awful, but of the 15 the only one I really enjoyed was S. Andrew Swann's "The Historian's Apprentice" (and even that one had the obvious ending: I enjoyed it for the setting more than the narrative).

Pretty much without exception these are unchallenging reiterations of themes that have been used so often you can see right through them; seldom do they rise above cliche. Maybe I'm just jaded, but Booklist's "fresh and sometimes brilliant" just says to me that they're real easy graders over there...

The premise hooked this reviewer who has always been fascinated by technology especially artificial intelligence since reading an early Fantastic 4 comic book involving Galactus first coming to dine on planet earth; enhanced by the real first Star Wars; and as John Helfers mentions in the Introduction the Terminator thrillers. Thus my bias is evident. To the credit of the contributors each of the tales is well written using varying approaches to the underlying theme of MAN VS. MACHINE. For instance "The Historian's Apprentice" by S. Andrew Swann looks back to how we got into the mess we are in today while the "Last of the Fourth" by Bill Fawcett focuses on military sci fi as machine and man battle for supremacy. Each of the fifteen new short stories are fun to read as we have come a long way baby since "Sarah Connor versus a killer robot from the future" as affirmed by this strong anthology.

Harriet Klausner

Ok, I have to admit, when I purchased this anthology, I did it for two reasons. One is that I am a huge fan of Daw anthologies and I try to read them all. The second, is I was intrigued by the topic of Man Vs Machine, and I'm a fan of the Terminator movies (Yes, even T3) so there you go. I knew that with Daw's eclectic group of contributors, not all the stories would follow the same old Terminator formula... and there were a wide variety of stories. A full list of the stories and the authors follow.

**Servant of Death by Jane Lindskold and Fred Saberhagen **The Unplug War by Brendan DuBois **Cold Dead Fingers by Loren L Coleman **The Hum by Rick Hautala **The Last of the Fourth by Bill Fawcett **Moral Imperative by Ed Gorman **Partnership by William H. Keith **Chasing Humanity by Bradley P. Beaulieu **The Difference by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. **Transformation by Stephen Leigh **Killer App by Richard Dansky **Reiteration by Simon Brown **Stalking Old John Bull by Jean Rabe **Engines of Desire & Despair by Russel Davis & **The Historian's Apprentice by S. Andrew Swann.

I don't know what it is about the stories, or it might have been me. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for what I was reading, and honestly, if I could give the anthology 3.5 stars I would. I just erred on the side of giving more because stories like Servant of Death are powerful, and Stalking Old John Bull stretched the theme of the anthology to the breaking point, but it was good. Many of the stories in this were less than stellar, at least in my eyes. None of them really have the "Terminator" flavor and perhaps my looking for something like that just slanted me too much. Maybe it's the fact that most of the science fiction of these stories is not hard or soft sci-fi... it's somewhere in the middle... and I wasn't quite looking for that, either.

Over all, it's not a terrible anthology, I have yet to meet a terrible Daw anthology. I would recommend it for a plane ride or a vacation, as long as no one makes my mistake and thinks they'll find one type of Man Vs Machine story... Daw is too evolved for that.

Recommended, especially for Sci-Fi fans looking for a good vacation book.

Top-level robotics research involves many disciplines: kinematics, dynamics, control, and programming. A growing number of researchers see the key to unifying these diverse fields in robot algorithms -mathematical descriptions linking perception and motion that can operate in the real world to achieve goals. This collection features articles by top-level scientists in theoretical computer science, computational geometry, robotics, perception, artificial intelligence, and mechanical engineering. They present robotics as a field of computation applied to the real world much more than just controlling robot arms! A very technical collection valuable to both researchers and students.

Top-level robotics research involves many disciplines: kinematics, dynamics, control, and programming. A growing number of researchers see the key to unifying these diverse fields in robot algorithms -mathematical descriptions linking perception and motion that can operate in the real world to achieve goals. This collection features articles by top-level scientists in theoretical computer science, computational geometry, robotics, perception, artificial intelligence, and mechanical engineering. They present robotics as a field of computation applied to the real world much more than just controlling robot arms! A very technical collection valuable to both researchers and students.

Top-level robotics research involves many disciplines: kinematics, dynamics, control, and programming. A growing number of researchers see the key to unifying these diverse fields in robot algorithms -mathematical descriptions linking perception and motion that can operate in the real world to achieve goals. This collection features articles by top-level scientists in theoretical computer science, computational geometry, robotics, perception, artificial intelligence, and mechanical engineering. They present robotics as a field of computation applied to the real world much more than just controlling robot arms! A very technical collection valuable to both researchers and students.

I have been fascinated with AI for a long time, so I was excited to see this book. I own 3 other AI books, and all of them are really good. This book explains things in a way that is easy to understand. The author doesn't use any C++ in the book every algorithm is done in pseudo-code to make it easy to implement using any language. It is a definitive guide to the basic and not so basic AI techniques. The aicore that the author provides on the CD is well documented and is very helpful.

The book covers:
Steering behaviors
Pathfinding
Decision Making
State Machines
Fuzzy Logic
Waypoints
Learning Behaviors
Communication
Teaching characters

And a break down of how a typical AI design is done in different types of games.

Just to give you a notion I am about 12 hours into this book. So I may add or change this as I get further along, but overall this is a must have book.

There are a few things that I personally don't like. One is no .exe are on the cd so everything has to be built. This is a new book, so maybe the author will build them and place them on his website. I would also like to see some solutions for Visual Studio on the cd. The author says several times he tries and makes the code as platform independent as possible, but It would be nice to have prebuilt .exe files at least so I can see the demo's in action.

Understand that the pseudo-code approach this book takes is what makes it such a standout from the rest of the crowd. The author is technically thorough and the syntax is straightforward enough to use in any language needed. Moreover, it frees the author to discuss AI in abstract terms which, in the end, proves to be much more valuable content. C++ source code puts the pseudo-code discussions into practice for those looking for real-world examples.

I would HIGHLY recommend this book as a follow up to Mat Buckland's "Programming Game AI by Example" (Nov., 2004)

The author uses "pseudo-code" through out the book. The cd contains only a pc-executable program. There is no source code on the CD.

This book is a poor source of programming code where the author explains how ai works based on the pseudo-code.

If you're looking for source code (ie C++ source code) you'll not find it here.

Although containing example code in Common Lisp, the Common Lisp is of Steele's 1st edition variety, (NOT 2nd. edition). Logical symbolic processing employing manipulation of some truth maintenence systems and nets is informative.

Although containing example code in Common Lisp, the Common Lisp is of Steele's 1st edition variety, (NOT 2nd. edition). Logical symbolic processing employing manipulation of some truth maintenence systems and nets is informative.
Re-enter Amazon's welcome screen, choose Books, choose Extended-Search, search by
"Charniak" author and "Artificial Intelligence Programming" title to order this book.

Although containing example code in Common Lisp, the Common Lisp is of Steele's 1st edition variety, (NOT 2nd. edition). Logical symbolic processing employing manipulation of some truth maintenence systems and nets is informative.