CS440: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Fall 2008
Programming Assignment #2: Predicate Clue Kibitzer
Due Tuesday, Nov. 4th, at noon.
Introduction
In the second writing assignment, you described a propositional calculus “clue kibitzer” that
could watch a game of clue and determine if any of the players had cheated. To make kibitzing a
propositional problem, we simplified the game a little, by asserting that no player ever made an
accusation that they knew to be false, and by removing the notion of which player denied an
accusation. For the programming assignment, you will implement a clue kibitzer based on
resolution theorem proving. However, we will add these two elements back into the game,
requiring predicate (rather than just propositional) theorem proving.
The Challenge
As in the writing assignment, your program is to listen to a game of clue and determine after
every move whether anyone has cheated. This time, however, the game is a little more realistic.
When a player makes an assertion in the form of a suspect, weapon and room (e.g. “I suspect
Prof. Plum with the knife in the kitchen”), they make the assertion to a specific player, and the
response comes from that player. Hence the response tells you whether a specific player can
disprove the assertion, not whether any player can disprove it. Also, it is possible that the player
making the assertion could disprove it, were they to ask themselves. Also, the number of players
per game is not fixed; any number can play, and different instance of the game will have different
numbers of players.
The specification is as follows: write a program that takes two arguments: an input file and an
output file. The input file contains the assertions made during a game (in the format described
below). Your program will write the output file (as described below). You must also write a
documentation file that describes (1) exactly how to compile your program and (2) exactly how to
run your program. You should submit a tar file through the class Checkin script containing your
source code (including Makefiles, if necessary) and your documentation, but no compiled code.
Failure to follow this (simple) specification will result in points being deducted.
Input
The input file contains one line of ASCII text per move of the game. Each line has six elements
separated by white space. The six elements are: player number (asking), who, with what, where,
player number (responding), and true/false. For example, the first line of an input file might look
like:
1 Plum Knife Conservatory 3 false
This would indicate that player 1 asserted that it was Prof. Plum with the Knife in the
Conservatory, and player 3 disproved it.
