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 Logic & Formal Reasoning


On Exact Sampling in the Two-Variable Fragment of First-Order Logic

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

In this paper, we study the sampling problem for first-order logic proposed recently by Wang et al. -- how to efficiently sample a model of a given first-order sentence on a finite domain? We extend their result for the universally-quantified subfragment of two-variable logic $\mathbf{FO}^2$ ($\mathbf{UFO}^2$) to the entire fragment of $\mathbf{FO}^2$. Specifically, we prove the domain-liftability under sampling of $\mathbf{FO}^2$, meaning that there exists a sampling algorithm for $\mathbf{FO}^2$ that runs in time polynomial in the domain size. We then further show that this result continues to hold even in the presence of counting constraints, such as $\forall x\exists_{=k} y: \varphi(x,y)$ and $\exists_{=k} x\forall y: \varphi(x,y)$, for some quantifier-free formula $\varphi(x,y)$. Our proposed method is constructive, and the resulting sampling algorithms have potential applications in various areas, including the uniform generation of combinatorial structures and sampling in statistical-relational models such as Markov logic networks and probabilistic logic programs.


Generating Symbolic Reasoning Problems with Transformer GANs

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

We study the capabilities of GANs and Wasserstein GANs equipped with Transformer encoders to generate sensible and challenging training data for symbolic reasoning domains. We conduct experiments on two problem domains where Transformers have been successfully applied recently: symbolic mathematics and temporal specifications in verification. Even without autoregression, our GAN models produce syntactically correct instances. We show that the generated data can be used as a substitute for real training data when training a classifier, and, especially, that training data can be generated from a dataset that is too small to be trained on directly. Using a GAN setting also allows us to alter the target distribution: We show that by adding a classifier uncertainty part to the generator objective, we obtain a dataset that is even harder to solve for a temporal logic classifier than our original dataset.


Interactive Acquisition of Fine-grained Visual Concepts by Exploiting Semantics of Generic Characterizations in Discourse

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Interactive Task Learning (ITL) concerns learning about unforeseen domain concepts via natural interactions with human users. The learner faces a number of significant constraints: learning should be online, incremental and few-shot, as it is expected to perform tangible belief updates right after novel words denoting unforeseen concepts are introduced. In this work, we explore a challenging symbol grounding task--discriminating among object classes that look very similar--within the constraints imposed by ITL. We demonstrate empirically that more data-efficient grounding results from exploiting the truth-conditions of the teacher's generic statements (e.g., "Xs have attribute Z.") and their implicatures in context (e.g., as an answer to "How are Xs and Ys different?", one infers Y lacks attribute Z).


A computational framework of human values for ethical AI

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

In the diverse array of work investigating the nature of human values from psychology, philosophy and social sciences, there is a clear consensus that values guide behaviour. More recently, a recognition that values provide a means to engineer ethical AI has emerged. Indeed, Stuart Russell proposed shifting AI's focus away from simply ``intelligence'' towards intelligence ``provably aligned with human values''. This challenge -- the value alignment problem -- with others including an AI's learning of human values, aggregating individual values to groups, and designing computational mechanisms to reason over values, has energised a sustained research effort. Despite this, no formal, computational definition of values has yet been proposed. We address this through a formal conceptual framework rooted in the social sciences, that provides a foundation for the systematic, integrated and interdisciplinary investigation into how human values can support designing ethical AI.


Towards Invertible Semantic-Preserving Embeddings of Logical Formulae

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Logic is the main formal language to perform automated reasoning, and it is further a human-interpretable language, at least for small formulae. Learning and optimising logic requirements and rules has always been an important problem in Artificial Intelligence. State of the art Machine Learning (ML) approaches are mostly based on gradient descent optimisation in continuous spaces, while learning logic is framed in the discrete syntactic space of formulae. Using continuous optimisation to learn logic properties is a challenging problem, requiring to embed formulae in a continuous space in a meaningful way, i.e. preserving the semantics. Approaches like [BGKN22] are able to construct effective semantic-preserving embeddings via kernel methods (for linear temporal logic), but the map they define is not invertible. In this work we address this problem, learning how to invert such an embedding leveraging deep architectures based on the Graph Variational Autoencoder framework. We propose a novel model specifically designed for this setting, justifying our design choices through an extensive experimental evaluation. Reported results in the context of propositional logic are promising, and several challenges regarding learning invertible embeddings of formulae are highlighted and addressed.


Contextual Reasoning for Scene Generation (Technical Report)

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

We present a continuation to our previous work, in which we developed the MR-CKR framework to reason with knowledge overriding across contexts organized in multi-relational hierarchies. Reasoning is realized via ASP with algebraic measures, allowing for flexible definitions of preferences. In this paper, we show how to apply our theoretical work to real autonomous-vehicle scene data. Goal of this work is to apply MR-CKR to the problem of generating challenging scenes for autonomous vehicle learning. In practice, most of the scene data for AV learning models common situations, thus it might be difficult to capture cases where a particular situation occurs (e.g. partial occlusions of a crossing pedestrian). The MR-CKR model allows for data organization exploiting the multi-dimensionality of such data (e.g., temporal and spatial). Reasoning over multiple contexts enables the verification and configuration of scenes, using the combination of different scene ontologies. We describe a framework for semantically guided data generation, based on a combination of MR-CKR and Algebraic Measures. The framework is implemented in a proof-of-concept prototype exemplifying some cases of scene generation.


Bilingual analogical proportions

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Analogical proportions are expressions of the form ``$a$ is to $b$ what $c$ is to $d$'' at the core of analogical reasoning which itself is at the core of human and artificial intelligence. The author has recently introduced {\em from first principles} an abstract algebro-logical framework of analogical proportions within the general setting of universal algebra and first-order logic. In that framework, the source and target algebras have the {\em same} underlying language. The purpose of this paper is to generalize his unilingual framework to a bilingual one where the underlying languages may differ. This is achieved by using hedges in justifications of proportions. The outcome is a major generalization vastly extending the applicability of the underlying framework. In a broader sense, this paper is a further step towards a mathematical theory of analogical reasoning.


Unsupervised Task Graph Generation from Instructional Video Transcripts

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

This work explores the problem of generating task graphs of real-world activities. Different from prior formulations, we consider a setting where text transcripts of instructional videos performing a real-world activity (e.g., making coffee) are provided and the goal is to identify the key steps relevant to the task as well as the dependency relationship between these key steps. We propose a novel task graph generation approach that combines the reasoning capabilities of instruction-tuned language models along with clustering and ranking components to generate accurate task graphs in a completely unsupervised manner. We show that the proposed approach generates more accurate task graphs compared to a supervised learning approach on tasks from the ProceL and CrossTask datasets.


Changing agents and ascribing beliefs in dynamic epistemic logic

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

In dynamic epistemic logic (Van Ditmarsch, Van Der Hoek, & Kooi, 2008) it is customary to use an action frame (Baltag & Moss, 2004; Baltag, Moss, & Solecki, 1998) to describe different views of a single action. In this article, action frames are extended to add or remove agents, we call these agent-update frames. This can be done selectively so that only some specified agents get information of the update, which can be used to model several interesting examples such as private update and deception, studied earlier by Baltag and Moss (2004); Sakama (2015); Van Ditmarsch, Van Eijck, Sietsma, and Wang (2012). The product update of a Kripke model by an action frame is an abbreviated way of describing the transformed Kripke model which is the result of performing the action. This is substantially extended to a sum-product update of a Kripke model by an agent-update frame in the new setting. These ideas are applied to an AI problem of modelling a story. We show that dynamic epistemic logics, with update modalities now based on agent-update frames, continue to have sound and complete proof systems. Decision procedures for model checking and satisfiability have expected complexity. For a sublanguage, there are polynomial space algorithms.


Ensuring Reliable Robot Task Performance through Probabilistic Rare-Event Verification and Synthesis

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Providing guarantees on the safe operation of robots against edge cases is challenging as testing methods such as traditional Monte-Carlo require too many samples to provide reasonable statistics. Built upon recent advancements in rare-event sampling, we present a model-based method to verify if a robotic system satisfies a Signal Temporal Logic (STL) specification in the face of environment variations and sensor/actuator noises. Our method is efficient and applicable to both linear and nonlinear and even black-box systems with arbitrary, but known, uncertainty distributions. For linear systems with Gaussian uncertainties, we exploit a feature to find optimal parameters that minimize the probability of failure. We demonstrate illustrative examples on applying our approach to real-world autonomous robotic systems.