Bridging the Semantic Gap in vGOAL for Verifiable Autonomous Decision-Making

Yi Yang, Tom Holvoet

2025

Abstract

Verifiable autonomous decision-making requires bridging the semantic gap between the execution semantics of an agent programming language (APL) and the formal model used for verification. In this paper, we address this challenge for vGOAL, an APL derived from GOAL and designed for automated verification. We make three contributions. First, we identify the semantic gap in vGOAL: while both its interpreter and its model-checking framework implement the semantics of vGOAL, they differ in how they define the next program state for vGOAL. Second, we bridge the semantic gap by developing an improved interpreter for vGOAL that aligns with the model checker’s formal semantics, thus ensuring correct verification results. Third, we introduce a stepwise refinement approach to address potential efficiency concerns arising from this semantic alignment. Through a case study in autonomous logistics, we demonstrate that while our approach introduces additional verification overhead, the efficient model-checking framework of vGOAL keeps this overhead manageable, making our solution practical for real-world applications.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Yang Y. and Holvoet T. (2025). Bridging the Semantic Gap in vGOAL for Verifiable Autonomous Decision-Making. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART; ISBN 978-989-758-737-5, SciTePress, pages 580-587. DOI: 10.5220/0013262400003890

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icaart25,
author={Yi Yang and Tom Holvoet},
title={Bridging the Semantic Gap in vGOAL for Verifiable Autonomous Decision-Making},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART},
year={2025},
pages={580-587},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013262400003890},
isbn={978-989-758-737-5},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: ICAART
TI - Bridging the Semantic Gap in vGOAL for Verifiable Autonomous Decision-Making
SN - 978-989-758-737-5
AU - Yang Y.
AU - Holvoet T.
PY - 2025
SP - 580
EP - 587
DO - 10.5220/0013262400003890
PB - SciTePress