What is the meaning of <- in AI?

Question

I've seen in a lot of AI related stuff the symbol <-. For example,

delta <- 0
x <- x + 1

etc.

I always assume its meaning is the same as =(assigment), but probably they have a meaning that's a bit different from assigment, I assume?

Thanks

Answer 1

It's assignment. It removes ambiguity that the "=" symbol adds, because that symbol is often overloaded to test equality.

It makes it very clear that the thing on the left is being assigned the thing on the right, rather than being matched, unified, or otherwise made equal to it.

Answer 2

Nope, that's pretty much it, you're correct in your assumption that it's a basic assignment.

In particular it means "assign value 0 to delta" and "assign value x+1 to x" in your samples.