Neuro-Symbolic AI for Developing, Testing and Consuming Web APIs: An AMBIZIONE Project Proposal

Speaker:

 Alberto Martín López, postdoctoral researcher SEART group at the SI, USI

Abstract:

Neuro-symbolic artificial intelligence (NSAI) combines neural (e.g., large language models) and symbolic (e.g., constraint satisfaction problem engines) techniques to solve problems that cannot be tackled by any of these techniques in isolation. Notable examples of NSAI-based systems are AlphaGeometry (by Google DeepMind), which can solve mathematical problems with similar performance as gold medallists of the International Mathematical Olympiad, and Flash Fill++ (by Microsoft), a feature in Excel spreadsheets that autocompletes cells based on the surrounding ones. In this talk, I will hint how NSAI can be applied to other domains, and I will focus on a specific scenario: Supporting the lifecycle of web APIs, that is, their development, testing and consumption. We all use web APIs every day (when we post a tweet, order food online, book a flight, watch a movie, etc.), and they are the cornerstone of software integration, as they interconnect millions of applications coming from heterogeneous sources, all of which depend on APIs. As such, supporting their development and well-functioning is of utmost importance. This talk will also serve as a rehearsal for an interview for an AMBIZIONE grant, for which this project is currently under evaluation.

Biography: 

Alberto Martín López is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the SEART group at the Software Institute, USI, Lugano. He obtained his PhD at the University of Seville (Spain) in 2022. He carried out research stays at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright Fellow, and at Kristiania University College (Norway), where he also held a lecturer position. His main field of expertise is the automated testing of web services. His work in this area has been recognized with multiple awards, including the Best PhD Thesis Award by SISTEDES (Spanish Society of Software Engineering), the Early Career Researcher Award by SCIE (Spanish Society of Computer Science) and BBVA Foundation, an ACM Distinguished Paper Award at ESEC/FSE’22, and the Gold Medal in the ACM Student Research Competition at ICSE’20, sponsored by Microsoft. Nowadays, his research interests focus on software testing, service-oriented computing, and the application of artificial intelligence and neuro-symbolic techniques to software-related tasks. To know more about Alberto, you can visit his personal website: https://personal.us.es/amarlop.

Chair: Hassan Atwi