Before machine learning took over, AI was done symbolically.

Symbolic methods still have value, and merging of symbolic and statistical methods is an emerging research area.

In particular, symbolic methods often have much greater explanatory power. Fusing symbolic methods with ML often creates a more explicable system.

In this talk we will explore some areas of active work on hybrid applications of symbolic and machine learning.

We write programs in a different language than we talk about them. "So we get a request, do the security mumble, pass it to the middleware that grabs ..."

Can we get closer to writing programs that describe the program's desired behavior? And why do such attempts always get poo-pooed by programmers?

This is a foofy cloud shaped drawings exploration of other ways to express software design intent, mostly by cheating.

48 years after it's invention, logic programming remains a less frequently used paradigm.

What can functional programming learn from logic programming?

Unification and nondeterminism are powerful constructs not strictly relegated to logic programming. We'll look at unification, nondeterministic completion, probabilistic computation, and constraint propagation in functional contexts.

As machine learning matures, it is becoming obvious that we need explainable solutions. As functional programming matures it becomes obvious that we need inference and nondeterminism. And linked open data demands reasoning. This all day workshop will introduce the logic programming paradigm, in which programs are expressed as a set of logical rules and executed by finding proofs of queries.

SWI-Prolog is the most highly developed and widely used language for logic programming.

The language, which has been in continuous use in academic research settings since it's invention in 1972, provides unparalleled power. Many problems which would be difficult to express in other languages are simple in SWI-Prolog. SWI-Prolog is a 'batteries included' modern language, ready for real world tasks like web development and process control.

In this dynamic hands on workshop we'll learn the basics of SWI-Prolog, and look at some of the amazing things it can do.