ABSTRACTION: Language — Science — Engineering
Abstraction is a key ingredient of human and machine intelligence, and foundational to modern science. But what is involved in teaching a machine to fly, be creative or reason like a human?
This workshop will bring together a number of international researchers who will discuss latest results and approaches to advancing the understanding and reasoning with abstractions. Presentations will address a wide area of disciplines, including robotics and engineering, natural language processing, knowledge representation and artificial intelligence, conceptual modelling, biomimetics, as well as cognition and philosophy.
Highlights of the event include 3 keynote talks: the first by Michael Gruninger (Toronto) and speaking about 'Mathematical Theories as Abstractions for Ontology Learning', the second by Marianna Bolognesi (Bologna) reporting, in her talk 'Abstraction: Unlocking meaning from experience through language', on the research in her ERC project ‘Abstraction’, and the third by Jakub Szymanik (Trento), reporting, in his talk 'On the language of thought', on the research in his ERC project ‘Cognitive Semantics and Quantities’.
The workshop is organised in cooperation with the ABSTRACTRON project on 'Conceptual Abstraction in Humans and Robots', conducted by Justus Piater (Innsbruck), Oliver Kutz and Angelika Peer (Bozen-Bolzano), and funded by the Autonome Provinz Bozen - Südtirol (Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen) through the Research Südtirol/Alto Adige 2022 Call.
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The registration for the workshop is at this link
https://www.unibz.it/en/events/abstraction-language-science-engineering
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Full programme:
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Time and Location: July 11, 2025. Piazza Università 1, F6 Roof Terrace, Design Building
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*** Session 1: 09:30–10:30***
- 09:00 Registration
- 09:15—09:30 Oliver Kutz: Opening
- 9:30--10:10 Michael Gruninger: Mathematical Theories as Abstractions for Ontology Learning
- 10:10–10:30 Fabian Neuhaus: What is an ontology, really?
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10:30 COFFEE@F6 30 min
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*** Session 2: 11:00–13:00***
- 11:00–11:30 Ludger Jansen: Abstraction in Biomimetics (online)
- 11:30–11:45 Anton Gnatenko: What is an ontology of computational complexity?
- 11:45–12:00 Amir Jaberi: What are abstract rules for assemblies?
- 12:00–12:15 Elena Romanenko: What is abstraction in conceptual modelling?
- 12:15–12:30 Gabriele Sacco: What do exceptions have in common?
- 12:30–13:00 Justus Piater & Alejandro Agostini: Learning symbols and abstractions in robot planning
13:00 LUNCH@Museion 90 min (selfpaid, Mensa also possible for locals)
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*** Session 3: 14:30–16:30***
- 14:30–15:30 Marianna Bolognesi: Abstraction: Unlocking meaning from experience through language
- 15:30–16:00 Mena Leemhuis & Oliver Kutz: Abstraction and Concept Invention: Towards neuro-symbolic conceptual blending
- 16:00–16:30 Raffaella Bernardi: Syllogistic Reasoning: a suitable test bed to evaluate LLMs' ability to abstract form from content
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16:30 COFFEE@F6 30 min
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*** Session 4: 17:00–18:30***
- 17:00–17:15 Leonardo Bertolazzi: Linking truth and validity in LLMs’ latent space
- 17:15–17:30 Rafael Penaloza: Abstraction and Meta-knowledge: where does knowledge come from?
- 17:30–18:30 Jakub Szymanik: On the language of thought
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18:30 Wrapup + Drinks
20:00 DINNER (selfpaid)
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