Initial Experiments with TPTP-style Automated Theorem Provers on ACL2 Problems

This paper reports our initial experiments with using external ATP on some corpora built with the ACL2 system. This is intended to provide the first estimate about the usefulness of such external reasoning and AI systems for solving ACL2 problems.Comment: In Proceedings ACL2 2014, arXiv:1406.123

Automated reasoning for explainable artificial intelligence

Reasoning and learning have been considered fundamental features of intelligence ever since the dawn of the field of artificial intelligence, leading to the development of the research areas of automated reasoning and machine learning. This short paper is a non-technical position statement that aims at prompting a discussion of the relationship between automated reasoning and machine learning, and more generally between automated reasoning and artificial intelligence. We suggest that the emergence of the new paradigm of XAI, that stands for eXplainable Artificial Intelligence, is an opportunity for rethinking these relationships, and that XAI may offer a grand challenge for future research on automated reasoning

Mathematical practice, crowdsourcing, and social machines

The highest level of mathematics has traditionally been seen as a solitary endeavour, to produce a proof for review and acceptance by research peers. Mathematics is now at a remarkable inflexion point, with new technology radically extending the power and limits of individuals. Crowdsourcing pulls together diverse experts to solve problems; symbolic computation tackles huge routine calculations; and computers check proofs too long and complicated for humans to comprehend. Mathematical practice is an emerging interdisciplinary field which draws on philosophy and social science to understand how mathematics is produced. Online mathematical activity provides a novel and rich source of data for empirical investigation of mathematical practice - for example the community question answering system {\it mathoverflow} contains around 40,000 mathematical conversations, and {\it polymath} collaborations provide transcripts of the process of discovering proofs. Our preliminary investigations have demonstrated the importance of "soft" aspects such as analogy and creativity, alongside deduction and proof, in the production of mathematics, and have given us new ways to think about the roles of people and machines in creating new mathematical knowledge. We discuss further investigation of these resources and what it might reveal. Crowdsourced mathematical activity is an example of a "social machine", a new paradigm, identified by Berners-Lee, for viewing a combination of people and computers as a single problem-solving entity, and the subject of major international research endeavours. We outline a future research agenda for mathematics social machines, a combination of people, computers, and mathematical archives to create and apply mathematics, with the potential to change the way people do mathematics, and to transform the reach, pace, and impact of mathematics research.Comment: To appear, Springer LNCS, Proceedings of Conferences on Intelligent Computer Mathematics, CICM 2013, July 2013 Bath, U

Theorem proving in large formal mathematics as an emerging ai field

Contains fulltext : 120023.pdf (preprint version ) (Closed access

Set of support, demodulation, paramodulation: a historical perspective

This article is a tribute to the scientific legacy of automated reasoning pioneer and JAR founder Lawrence T. (Larry) Wos. Larry's main technical contributions were the set-of-support strategy for resolution theorem proving, and the demodulation and paramodulation inference rules for building equality into resolution. Starting from the original definitions of these concepts in Larry's papers, this survey traces their evolution, unearthing the often forgotten trails that connect Larry's original definitions to those that became standard in the field