DistributedArtificialIntellingence

Question 1

What is Intelligence (in its broadest sense)?

Answer 1

The capability to act purposefully towards the achievement of goals

Question 2

What are the four key capabilities needed for intelligent systems?

Answer 2

1. Perceiving 2. Reasoning 3. Acting 4. Adaptivity

Question 3

What is Perceiving in AI systems?

Answer 3

The capability to perceive and understand what happens in environment, often through processing sensory data

Question 4

What two types of reasoning exist in reasoning systems?

Answer 4

1. Reactive reasoning (based on pre-defined rules) 2. Strategic reasoning (comparing current vs desired situation)

Question 5

What is an autonomous agent?

Answer 5

An intelligent entity that can act in autonomy (without external control or supervision)

Question 6

What are the three types of AI systems based on capabilities?

Answer 6

1. Perceptive Systems 2. Reasoning Systems 3. Autonomous Agents

Question 7

How does distributed perception differ from single AI perception?

Answer 7

In DAI, different entities perceive different portions of environment, while single AI has unified perception

Question 8

What are the two types of interactions between agents?

Answer 8

1. Indirect Interactions (behavior affects others) 2. Direct Interactions (explicit communication)

Question 9

What are the five key reasons to use DAI?

Answer 9

1. Environmental Coexistence 2. Complex, Inherently Distributed Problems 3. Reliability and Fault Tolerance 4. Scalability 5. Natural Modeling of Domains

Question 10

What is a Distributed System?

Answer 10

A system of multiple computational processes, each with own local memory and capable of interacting

Question 11

What is a Distributed Architecture?

Answer 11

Set of connected computational elements that don’t share memory/clock/space, with communication system for interaction

Question 12

What is Distributed Computing?

Answer 12

Solving problems using distributed entities where each has partial knowledge/capability of solving the problem

Question 13

What are the four factors that distinguish DAI from distributed computing?

Answer 13

1. Degree of Adaptivity 2. Degree of Autonomy 3. Flexibility of Interactions 4. Learning Abilities

Question 14

What are Distributed Algorithms?

Answer 14

Algorithms executed by concurrent distributed processes to solve distributed problems and coordinate actions

Question 15

What are five main challenges in DAI?

Answer 15

1. Communication Overhead 2. Consistency and Coherence 3. Scalability 4. Security and Trust 5. Unpredictability

Question 16

What is Middleware?

Answer 16

Software layer between operating system and application software that enables components to interact effectively

Question 17

What are the four key challenges middleware addresses?

Answer 17

1. Transparency and Scalability 2. Heterogeneity 3. Application-level Adaptivity 4. Environment-level Adaptivity

Question 18

What are the characteristics of Client-Server Models?

Answer 18

1. Asymmetric roles 2. Centralized resource management 3. Scalability challenges

Question 19

What are the characteristics of P2P Models?

Answer 19

1. Decentralized 2. Scalable 3. Resilient

Question 20

What is a Multiagent Model?

Answer 20

Autonomous independent software modules acting independently with own goals, interacting with environment and each other