Toward verified artificial intelligence
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Making AI more trustworthy with a formal methods-based approach to AI system verification and validation.
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Seshia et al. (2022) propose techniques to automatically infer a decomposition of the system into components along with interface contracts between them.
“Seshia et al. (2022) tackle this by proposing techniques to automatically infer a decomposition of the system into components along with interface contracts between them.”
From Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems (2024) · cites this paper as Seshia et al. (2022)
In “Compositional reasoning for AI/ML” (page unavailable), the paper describes splitting a system into components and using assume-guarantee contracts. In “Bridging design time and runtime for resilient AI” (page unavailable), it calls for techniques to generate those contracts algorithmically. It does not say that the decomposition into components is automatically inferred, so that part of the claim is unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredEven when individual AI components perform tasks that are hard to formalise, the relevant notion of safety can still be formalised at the full system level.
“even when individual AI components perform tasks that are hard to formalise, it can still be the case that the relevant notion of safety can be formalised at the full system level.”
From Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems (2024) · cites this paper as Seshia et al. (2022)
The task of formalising specifications can be easier with a system-level approach.
“It is also important to note that the task of formalising specifications can be easier with a system-level approach.”
From Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems (2024) · cites this paper as Seshia et al. (2022)
Seshia et al. (2022) presents 15 principles for providing provable guarantees of safety for AI systems.
“Seshia et al. (2022), who presents 15 principles for providing provable guarantees of safety for AI systems.”
From Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems (2024) · cites this paper as Seshia et al. (2022)
One important piece is devising suitable abstractions of AI components such as neural networks.
“First of all, one important piece is devising suitable abstractions of AI components such as neural networks.”
From Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems (2024) · cites this paper as Seshia et al. (2022)
This literature has proposed a range of algorithms which can be used to ensure that a given neural network satisfies a given specification, or that a system containing neural components satisfies a safety specification.
“This literature has proposed a range of algorithms which can be used to ensure that a given neural network (potentially belonging to some restricted class) satisfies a given specification (typically specified over its interfaces), or that a system containing neural components satisfies a safety specification.”
From Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems (2024) · cites this paper as Seshia et al. (2022)
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Cites
The seven tools of causal inference, with reflections on machine learning
Pearl, J. (2019) · Communications of the ACM · doi:10.1145/3241036 · Cited by 659 · see citing works
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Trustworthy AI: From Principles to Practices
Li, B., Qi, P., Liu, B., Di, S., Liu, J., Pei, J., Yi, J., & Zhou, B. (2023) · ACM Computing Surveys · doi:10.1145/3555803 · Cited by 612 · see citing works
A Review on Human–Machine Trust Evaluation: Human-Centric and Machine-Centric Perspectives
Gebru, B., Zeleke, L., Blankson, D., Nabil, M., Nateghi, S., Homaifar, A., & Tunstel, E. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems · doi:10.1109/thms.2022.3144956 · Cited by 101 · see citing works
Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems
Dalrymple, D. "., Skalse, J., Bengio, Y., Russell, S., Tegmark, M., Seshia, S., Omohundro, S., Szegedy, C., Goldhaber, B., Ammann, N., et al. (2024) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.06624 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Seshia, S. A., Sadigh, D., & Sastry, S. S.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Stanford University (US)
- Venue
- Communications of the ACM
- Published
- 2022-06-21
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 46-55
- ISSN
- 0001-0782 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-7317
- OpenAlex
- W4283212640
- Cited by
- 215
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 61 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 20.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Communications of the ACM (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- NSF (1545126,1646208,1837132)
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (FA8750-16-C0043,FA8750-20-C-0156)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Formal Methods in Verification
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality › Safety Systems Engineering in Autonomy
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Logic, programming, and type systems
- Keywords
- formal methods, trustworthy AI, AI safety
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