probability

Terms from Artificial Intelligence: humans at the heart of algorithms

Page numbers are for draft copy at present; they will be replaced with correct numbers when final book is formatted. Chapter numbers are correct and will not change now.

Probability is a measure of the likelihood of some event or outcome occuring . It is measured from zero (the event is impossible or will never occur) to 1 (it will definitely happen). For example, the porobablity of obtaining a number bigger than 4 on a single roll of a die is 1/3 (=1/6 for the 5 face plus 1/6 for the 6 face). Phenomenon, such as the roll of a die, that can be repeated the probability can be seen as representing the long term frequency of the outcome happening, but for singular outcomes, such as a potential civilisation-ending astroid collision, the philopsophical meaning is more problematic.

Used in Chap. 3: pages 30, 32, 35; Chap. 4: page 57; Chap. 7: page 104; Chap. 9: page 131; Chap. 10: page 148; Chap. 11: pages 168, 169; Chap. 14: pages 221, 224, 225; Chap. 18: page 310; Chap. 19: pages 318, 324; Chap. 21: page 356; Chap. 22: page 370