Consider the game of 8-queens. We want to solve it using hill climbing search. We use the number of pairs of queens under attack as the heuristic. The figure below shows the initial state in the search.

Which queen should we move if we want the best heuristic value after the move (we name the queens after their column, 1,2,...,8)?

Question

Consider the game of 8-queens. We want to solve it using hill climbing search. We use the number of pairs of queens under attack as the heuristic. The figure below shows the initial state in the search.

Which queen should we move if we want the best heuristic value after the move (we name the queens after their column, 1,2,...,8)?

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

First, restating the scenario: we are solving the 8-queens problem with hill climbing, using the heuristic that counts the number of pairs of queens under attack. The question asks which queen should be moved to achieve the best heuristic value after the move, with queens labeled by their column numbers 1 through 8. The provided answer option is: Queen 2, 5, 6 or 7.

Now, let's analyze the conceptually possible moves and what the heuristic measures. In hill climbing, we evaluate moving each queen within its column to any other row and compute the resulting total number of attacking pairs. The goal is to pick a move that yields the smallest number of such attacks (the lowest heuristic value). A move is considered favorable if it strictly reduces the number of conflicts; if several moves tie for the minimum, any of the tied moves could be chosen depending on tie-breaking rules.

Reasoning about the given option, we note that it claims the best next move is to move one of the queens in columns 2, 5, 6, or 7. This implies that in the current configuration, moving any queen in those particular columns to some other row would produce the largest reduction in conflicts among all possibleSingle-queen moves across all columns. In hill climbing, it is common that certain queens are situated in positions that participate in many attacking pairs, so relocating those queens tends to yield a more substantial drop in the heuristic than moving queens that are already in relatively non-conflicting positions.

Why this option could be correct:
- It identifies a subset of queens whose relocation is most likely to reduce conflicts, based on the typical distribution of attacks in random initial states. If the current arrangement has multiple attacking pairs involving these columns, exploring moves for these queens has the highest potential to lower the total number of attacks.
- If the other columns (1, 3, 4, 8) are already in relatively safe rows with few or no additional conflicts created by moving them, then their moves would not improve the heuristic as much as moves in columns 2, 5, 6, or 7.

Why this option could be misleading if misapplied:
- Without seeing the exact diagram of the initial state, we cannot compute the precise counts of attacks or identify which specific move yields the absolute minimum, so asserting that only those four columns can produce the best improvement is a claim that depends on the actual layout.
- If there happens to be a move in one of the other columns that also yields the same minimum heuristic (a tie), then restricting the best move to 2, 5, 6, or 7 would be overly narrow unless ties are explicitly allowed in the problem’s rules.

In summary, the option 'Queen 2, 5, 6 or 7' is plausible as the best next move in a hill-climbing step aimed at reducing the number of attacking pairs, because these columns are likely to offer moves that significantly reduce conflicts. However, the definitive correctness would require evaluating the exact attack counts after moving each queen in each column, which depends on the exact initial configuration shown in the figure. If the problem’s figure confirms that moving a queen from any of those columns yields the largest decrease, then this option correctly identifies the candidates for the best move.

DD2380 HT24 (AIHT24_2) Q1: Search

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