Explanation, Semantics and Ontology
Free registration required @ https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/explanation-semantics-and-ontology-tickets-1219381064589
We live our lives immersed in Cyber-human systems, i.e., systems formed by the coordinated interaction of human and computational components. The latter can only be justified in these systems to the extent that they are meaningful to humans – in both senses of ‘meaning’, i.e., in the sense of semantics as well as in the sense of purpose or significance. On one hand, the symbolic structures these components manipulate only acquire meaning when mapped to shared human conceptualizations of the world. On the other hand, they can only be justified if ethically designed. Ultimately, we can only build trustworthy cyber-human systems if the interoperation of their components is meaning preserving, i.e., if we are able to: semantically interoperate these components; transparently demonstrate (i.e., explain) how their interoperation positively contributes to human values and goals. To meet these requirements, we must be able to explicitly reveal and safely relate the different theories of the world (i.e., ontologies) embedded in these components.

In this talk, Professor Guizzardi discusses the strong relation between the notions of semantics, ontology, and explanation under certain interpretations. Specifically, he will present a notion of explanation termed Ontological Unpacking, which aims at explaining the symbolic structures manipulated by these systems. He will show that the information structures produced by Ontological Unpacking differ from their traditional counterparts not only in their expressivity but also on their nature: while the latter typically merely have a descriptive nature, the former have an explanatory one. Moreover, he shows that it is exactly this explanatory nature that is required for semantic interoperability and, hence, trustworthiness. Finally, Professor Guizzardi will discuss the relation between Ontological Unpacking and other forms of explanation in philosophy and science, as well as in Artificial Intelligence. He will argue that the current trend in XAI (Explainable AI) in which “to explain is to produce a symbolic artifact” (e.g., a decision tree or a counterfactual description) is an incomplete project resting on a false assumption, that these artifacts are not “inherently interpretable”, and that they should be taken as the beginning of the road to explanation, not the end.
Date: 19 February 2025, 16:30
Venue: Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road OX2 6PN
Venue Details: The Hub, Kellogg College, 60-62 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6PN
Speaker: Professor Giancarlo Guizzardi (University of Twente)
Organising department: Kellogg College
Organiser: Dr Avi Shaked (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: avi.shaked@cs.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/explanation-semantics-and-ontology-tickets-1219381064589
Cost: 0
Audience: Public
Editor: Avi Shaked