The blocks world is one of the most famous planning domains in artificial intelligence. The program was created by Terry Winograd and is a limited-domain natural-language system that can understand typed commands and move blocks around on a surface.
Imagine a set of cubes (blocks) sitting on a table. The goal is to build one or more vertical stacks of blocks. The catch is that only one block may be moved at a time: it may either be placed on the table or placed atop another block. Because of this, any blocks that are, at a given time, under another block cannot be moved.
The simplicity of this toy world lends itself readily to symbolic or classical A.I. approaches, in which the world is modeled as a set of abstract symbols which may be reasoned about.
Theses/projects which took place in Blocks World:
- Terry Winograd's SHRDLU
- Patrick Winston's structural concept learner
It is shown that the best version of blocks world is NP-hard.
Famous quotes containing the words blocks and/or world:
“The vast silence of Buddha overtakes
and overrules the oncoming roar
of tragic life that fills alleys and avenues;
it blocks the way of pedicabs, police, convoys.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“A baby is God’s way of saying the world should go on.”
—Doris Smith. quoted in What Is a Baby?, By Richard and Helen Exley.