Gerardo Ignacio Simari

This article introduces a method for detecting argumentative communities in semi-structured debates, which are supported by ad-populum argumentation schemes, as proposed by Walton. In these communities, opinions are characterized by their level of cohesion and the argumentative groups involved. In this context, we present a semi-structured argumentation formalism for analyzing social media debates and demonstrate how large language models can assist in instantiating the proposed formalism. We use conceptualizations, similarity and valued-based argumentation frameworks to assess argument cohesion and strength. Additionally, we model discursive interactions to analyze how stances influence one another and classify argumentative communities based on popular opinion argumentation schemes. We show that these communities can be modeled using such schemes, relying on public perception and consensus.

Machine learning models assume that training and test samples are drawn from the same distribution. As such, significant differences between training and test distributions often lead to degradations in performance. We introduce Multiple Distribution Shift - Aerial (MDS-A) - a collection of inter-related datasets of the same aerial domain that are perturbed in different ways to better characterize the effects of out-of-distribution performance. Specifically, MDS-A is a set of simulated aerial datasets collected under different weather conditions. We include six datasets under different simulated weather conditions along with six baseline object-detection models, as well as several test datasets that are a mix of weather conditions that we show have significant differences from the training data. In this paper, we present characterizations of MDS-A, provide performance results for the baseline machine learning models (on both their specific training datasets and the test data), as well as results of the baselines after employing recent knowledge-engineering error-detection techniques (EDR) thought to improve out-of-distribution performance. The dataset is made readily available online.

Metacognition is the concept of reasoning about an agent's own internal processes, and it has recently received renewed attention with respect to artificial intelligence (AI) and, more specifically, machine learning systems. This paper reviews a hybrid-AI approach known as "error detecting and correcting rules" (EDCR) that allows for the learning of rules to correct perceptual (e.g., neural) models. Additionally, we introduce a probabilistic framework that adds rigor to prior empirical studies, and we use this framework to prove results on necessary and sufficient conditions for metacognitive improvement, as well as limits to the approach. A set of future research directions is also provided.

Machine learning models assume that training and test samples are drawn from the same distribution. As such, significant differences between training and test distributions often lead to degradations in performance. We introduce Multiple Distribution Shift -- Aerial (MDS-A) -- a collection of inter-related datasets of the same aerial domain that are perturbed in different ways to better characterize the effects of out-of-distribution performance. Specifically, MDS-A is a set of simulated aerial datasets collected under different weather conditions. We include six datasets under different simulated weather conditions along with six baseline object-detection models, as well as several test datasets that are a mix of weather conditions that we show have significant differences from the training data. In this paper, we present characterizations of MDS-A, provide performance results for the baseline machine learning models (on both their specific training datasets and the test data), as well as results of the baselines after employing recent knowledge-engineering error-detection techniques (EDR) thought to improve out-of-distribution performance. The dataset is available at https://lab-v2.github.io/mdsa-dataset-website.

The ability to generate artificial human movement patterns while meeting location and time constraints is an important problem in the security community, particularly as it enables the study of the analog problem of detecting such patterns while maintaining privacy. We frame this problem as an instance of abduction guided by a novel parsimony function represented as an aggregate truth value over an annotated logic program. This approach has the added benefit of affording explainability to an analyst user. By showing that any subset of such a program can provide a lower bound on this parsimony requirement, we are able to abduce movement trajectories efficiently through an informed (i.e., A*) search. We describe how our implementation was enhanced with the application of multiple techniques in order to be scaled and integrated with a cloud-based software stack that included bottom-up rule learning, geolocated knowledge graph retrieval/management, and interfaces with government systems for independently conducted government-run tests for which we provide results. We also report on our own experiments showing that we not only provide exact results but also scale to very large scenarios and provide realistic agent trajectories that can go undetected by machine learning anomaly detectors.

In this paper, we study the problem of visual question answering (VQA) where the image and query are represented by ASP programs that lack domain data. We provide an approach that is orthogonal and complementary to existing knowledge augmentation techniques where we abduce domain relationships of image constructs from past examples. After framing the abduction problem, we provide a baseline approach, and an implementation that significantly improves the accuracy of query answering yet requires few examples.

We consider behavior of agents in a long-term multiagent coopetitive setting in which agents vary their cooperative and competitive stances over time. Using the game of Diplomacy as a testbed, we study how successful agents vary their coopetitive behavior, developing a new “style of play” (SoP) characterization of player behavior. We assess five novel SoP hypotheses about successful behavior. We propose two algorithms to automatically compute an agent’s SoP vector and describe the important factors in this computation. As an agent’s SoP depends on the game state and its perception of threat, we develop a novel “means, motive, and opportunity” (MMO) model of threat and show that we can predict threats effectively using this model. We provide novel insights into how agents should behave to more successfully achieve their goals in long-term coopetitive settings.