Check News in One Click: NLP-Empowered Pro-Kremlin Propaganda Detection

Many European citizens become targets of the Kremlin propaganda campaigns, aiming to minimise public support for Ukraine, foster a climate of mistrust and disunity, and shape elections (Meister, 2022). To address this challenge, we developed ''Check News in 1 Click'', the first NLP-empowered pro-Kremlin propaganda detection application available in 7 languages, which provides the lay user with feedback on their news, and explains manipulative linguistic features and keywords. We conducted a user study, analysed user entries and models' behaviour paired with questionnaire answers, and investigated the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed interpretative solution.

Normative Conditional Reasoning as a Fragment of HOL

We report some results regarding the mechanization of normative (preference-based) conditional reasoning. Our focus is on Aqvist's system E for conditional obligation (and its extensions). Our mechanization is achieved via a shallow semantical embedding in Isabelle/HOL. We consider two possible uses of the framework. The first one is as a tool for meta-reasoning about the considered logic. We employ it for the automated verification of deontic correspondences (broadly conceived) and related matters, analogous to what has been previously achieved for the modal logic cube. The second use is as a tool for assessing ethical arguments. We provide a computer encoding of a well-known paradox in population ethics, Parfit's repugnant conclusion. Whether the presented encoding increases or decreases the attractiveness and persuasiveness of the repugnant conclusion is a question we would like to pass on to philosophy and ethics.

PapagAI:Automated Feedback for Reflective Essays

Written reflective practice is a regular exercise pre-service teachers perform during their higher education. Usually, their lecturers are expected to provide individual feedback, which can be a challenging task to perform on a regular basis. In this paper, we present the first open-source automated feedback tool based on didactic theory and implemented as a hybrid AI system. We describe the components and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our system compared to the state-of-art generative large language models. The main objective of our work is to enable better learning outcomes for students and to complement the teaching activities of lecturers.

Theorem Proving in Dependently-Typed Higher-Order Logic -- Extended Preprint

Higher-order logic HOL offers a very simple syntax and semantics for representing and reasoning about typed data structures. But its type system lacks advanced features where types may depend on terms. Dependent type theory offers such a rich type system, but has rather substantial conceptual differences to HOL, as well as comparatively poor proof automation support. We introduce a dependently-typed extension DHOL of HOL that retains the style and conceptual framework of HOL. Moreover, we build a translation from DHOL to HOL and implement it as a preprocessor to a HOL theorem prover, thereby obtaining a theorem prover for DHOL.

Automated multilingual detection of Pro-Kremlin propaganda in newspapers and Telegram posts

The full-scale conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine generated an unprecedented amount of news articles and social media data reflecting opposing ideologies and narratives. These polarized campaigns have led to mutual accusations of misinformation and fake news, shaping an atmosphere of confusion and mistrust for readers worldwide. This study analyses how the media affected and mirrored public opinion during the first month of the war using news articles and Telegram news channels in Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian and English. We propose and compare two methods of multilingual automated pro-Kremlin propaganda identification, based on Transformers and linguistic features. We analyse the advantages and disadvantages of both methods, their adaptability to new genres and languages, and ethical considerations of their usage for content moderation. With this work, we aim to lay the foundation for further development of moderation tools tailored to the current conflict.

Solving QMLTP Problems by Translation to Higher-order Logic

This paper describes an evaluation of Automated Theorem Proving (ATP) systems on problems taken from the QMLTP library of first-order modal logic problems. Principally, the problems are translated to higher-order logic in the TPTP languages using an embedding approach, and solved using higher-order logic ATP systems. Additionally, the results from native modal logic ATP systems are considered, and compared with those from the embedding approach. The conclusions are that (i) The embedding process is reliable and successful. (ii) The choice of backend ATP system can significantly impact the performance of the embedding approach. (iii) Native modal logic ATP systems outperform the embedding approach. (iv) The embedding approach can cope with a wider range modal logics than the native modal systems considered.

Who Finds the Short Proof? An Exploration of Variants of Boolos' Curious Inference using Higher-order Automated Theorem Provers

This paper reports on an exploration of variants of Boolos' curious inference, using higher-order automated theorem provers (ATPs). Surprisingly, only a single shorthand notation had to be provided by hand. All higher-order lemmas required for obtaining short proof are automatically discovered by the ATPs. Given the observations and suggestions in this paper, full proof automation of Boolos' example on the speedup of proof lengths, and related examples, now seems to be within reach for higher-order ATPs.

Automated Reasoning in Non-classical Logics in the TPTP World

Non-classical logics are used in a wide spectrum of disciplines, including artificial intelligence, computer science, mathematics, and philosophy. The de-facto standard infrastructure for automated theorem proving, the TPTP World, currently supports only classical logics. Similar standards for non-classical logic reasoning do not exist (yet). This hampers practical development of reasoning systems, and limits their interoperability and application. This paper describes the latest extension of the TPTP World, which provides languages and infrastructure for reasoning in non-classical logics. The extensions integrate seamlessly with the existing TPTP World.

A Simplified Variant of Gödel's Ontological Argument

A simplified variant of G\"odel's ontological argument is presented. The simplified argument is valid already in basic modal logics K or KT, it does not suffer from modal collapse, and it avoids the rather complex predicates of essence (Ess.) and necessary existence (NE) as used by G\"odel. The variant presented has been obtained as a side result of a series of theory simplification experiments conducted in interaction with a modern proof assistant system. The starting point for these experiments was the computer encoding of G\"odel's argument, and then automated reasoning techniques were systematically applied to arrive at the simplified variant presented. The presented work thus exemplifies a fruitful human-computer interaction in computational metaphysics. Whether the presented result increases or decreases the attractiveness and persuasiveness of the ontological argument is a question I would like to pass on to philosophy and theology.

Modeling and Automating Public Announcement Logic with Relativized Common Knowledge as a Fragment of HOL in LogiKEy

A shallow semantical embedding for public announcement logic with relativized common knowledge is presented. This embedding enables the first-time automation of this logic with off-the-shelf theorem provers for classical higher-order logic. It is demonstrated (i) how meta-theoretical studies can be automated this way, and (ii) how non-trivial reasoning in the target logic (public announcement logic), required e.g. to obtain a convincing encoding and automation of the wise men puzzle, can be realized. Key to the presented semantical embedding is that evaluation domains are modeled explicitly and treated as an additional parameter in the encodings of the constituents of the embedded target logic; in previous related works, e.g. on the embedding of normal modal logics, evaluation domains were implicitly shared between meta-logic and target logic. The work presented in this article constitutes an important addition to the pluralist LogiKEy knowledge engineering methodology, which enables experimentation with logics and their combinations, with general and domain knowledge, and with concrete use cases -- all at the same time.