Events Calendar

Kuldeep Meel (National University of Singapore) - Functional Synthesis: An Ideal Meeting Ground for Formal Methods and Machine Learning

Speaker: Kuldeep Meel, National University of Singapore

Talk Title: Functional Synthesis: An Ideal Meeting Ground for Formal Methods and Machine Learning

Abstract: Don't we all dream of the perfect assistant whom we can just tell what to do and the assistant can figure out how to accomplish the tasks? Formally, given a specification F(X,Y) over the set of input variables X and output variables Y, we want the assistant, aka functional synthesis engine, to design a function G such that F(X,G(X)) is true. Functional synthesis has been studied for over 150 years, dating back Boole in 1850's and yet scalability remains a core challenge. Motivated by progress in machine learning, we design a new algorithmic framework Manthan, which views functional synthesis as a classification problem, relying on advances in constrained sampling for data generation, and advances in automated reasoning for a novel proof-guided refinement and provable verification. The significant performance improvements call for interesting future work at the intersection of machine learning, constrained sampling, and automated reasoning.

Biography: Kuldeep Meel holds the NUS Presidential Young Professorship in the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore (NUS). His research interests lie at the intersection of Formal Methods and Artificial Intelligence. He is a recipient of the 2022 ACP Early Career Researcher Award, the 2019 NRF Fellowship for AI and was named AI's 10 to Watch by IEEE Intelligent Systems in 2020. His research program's recent recognitions include the CACM Research Highlight Award, 2022 ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight, IJCAI-22 Early Career Spotlight, best paper award nominations at ICCAD-21 and DATE-23.

Host: Mukund Raghothaman

Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Angela Inostroza-Hoffman / Computer Science