Adversarial Search — AI Technical Interview Questions & Answers

Adversarial Search

Adversarial Search

  • Adversarial search is for games with an opponent who tries to make you lose. Chess, tic-tac-toe, Go. You cannot assume the other player will help. Minimax and alpha-beta live here. Chance games add dice (expectimax).
  • Not the same as finding a path on a map with no enemy. Say “opponent” in the first sentence.
  • Adversarial Search — output: three exam lines. Graph on paper first.
  start
    ├── BFS  queue
    ├── DFS  stack
    └── A*   g+h
    │
    ▼
   goal

Technical Interview Tip: Why BFS is the wrong tool for chess.

Code Examples for Adversarial Search

Example

# Adversarial Search
print("draw 6 nodes")
print("name the DS: queue / stack / priority")
print("say if the path is optimal")

Adversarial Search — output: three exam lines. Graph on paper first.

How to Explain Adversarial Search to an Interviewer

Explain Adversarial Search as if you are teaching a junior — definition, then one example.

Search vs an opponent. Tools : minimax, alpha-beta.

What does the example print, and what does that prove?

Adversarial Search — output: three exam lines

What mistake do freshers make with Adversarial Search?

Only the buzzword, no example