The book presents all modern achievements and outlines ideas that were formulated in research conducted over the past fifty years, as well as collected over two millennia in areas of knowledge that became the impetus for the development of artificial intelligence as the science of designing rational agents. Theoretical the description is illustrated by numerous algorithms, implementations of which in the form of ready-made programs in several programming languages are located on the Web site accompanying the book. The book is intended for use in a basic university course or in a sequence of courses in a specialty. It is applicable as a basic reference book for graduate students specializing in the field of artificial intelligence, and will also be of interest to professionals who want to go beyond the boundaries of their chosen specialty. Thanks to the crystal clarity and visualization of the presentation, it may well be considered one of the best examples of popular science literature.