David Poole and Alan Mackworth wrote:Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents is a book about the science of artificial intelligence (AI). The view we take is that AI is the study of the design of intelligent computational agents. The book is structured as a textbook but it is designed to be accessible to a wide audience.

We wrote this book because we are excited about the emergence of AI as an integrated science. As with any science worth its salt, AI has a coherent, formal theory and a rambunctious experimental wing. Here we balance theory and experiment and show how to link them intimately together. We develop the science of AI together with its engineering applications. We believe the adage, "There is nothing so practical as a good theory." The spirit of our approach is captured by the dictum, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." We must build the science on solid foundations; we present the foundations, but only sketch, and give some examples of, the complexity required to build useful intelligent systems. Although the resulting systems the will be complex, the foundations and the building blocks should be simple.