ABDA-NL: A Natural-Language Scenario Explorer for Argument-Based Reasoning

Abstract

ABDA-NL adds a natural-language interface to ABDA, a system for argument-based discussion using ASPIC- knowledge bases under grounded semantics. Users see which conclusions are accepted, rejected, or undecided, open an interactive rendering of the grounded discussion game to learn why, explore what-if alternatives by suspending assumptions and rules or changing preferences, ask questions that are answered from a scenario's reference documents, and author new facts, assumptions, and rules in plain English. A large language model provides the bridge between language and formalism: it answers questions from the documents and the current state of the scenario, and it translates plain-English edits into candidate formal statements. The deterministic ABDA engine remains the sole source of arguments, attacks, and acceptance labels, and every proposal of the model is validated and confirmed by the user before it takes effect.