Neural Abstract Machines & Program Induction workshop @ NIPS 2016

Machine intelligence capable of learning complex procedural behavior, inducing (latent) programs, and reasoning with these programs is a key to solving artificial intelligence. The problems of learning procedural behavior and program induction have been studied from different perspectives in many computer science fields such as program synthesis [1], probabilistic programming [2], inductive logic programming [3], reinforcement learning [4], and recently in deep learning. However, despite the common goal, there seems to be little communication and collaboration between the different fields focused on this problem. Recently, there have been many success stories in the deep learning community related to learning neural networks capable of using trainable memory abstractions. This has led to the development of neural networks with differentiable data structures such as Neural Turing Machines [5], Memory Networks [6], Neural Stacks [7, 8], and Hierarchical Attentive Memory [11], among others. Simultaneously, neural program induction models like Neural Program-Interpreters [9] and the Neural Programmer [10] have created much excitement in the field, promising induction of algorithmic behavior, and enabling inclusion of programming languages in the processes of execution and induction, while remaining trainable end-to-end. Trainable program induction models have the potential to make a substantial impact on many problems involving long-term memory, reasoning, and procedural execution, such as question answering, dialog, and robotics. The aim of the NAMPI workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners from both academia and industry, in the areas of deep learning, program synthesis, probabilistic programming, inductive programming and reinforcement learning, to exchange ideas on the future of program induction with a special focus on neural network models and abstract machines. Through this workshop we look to identify common challenges, exchange ideas and lessons learned from the different fields, as well as establish a (set of) standard evaluation benchmark(s) for approaches that learn with abstraction and/or reason with induced programs.