Extracting Robust Register Automata from Neural Networks over Data Sequences

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hong, Chih-Duo, Jiang, Hongjian, Lin, Anthony W., Markgraf, Oliver, Parsert, Julian, Tan, Tony
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Hong, Chih-Duo
Jiang, Hongjian
Lin, Anthony W.
Markgraf, Oliver
Parsert, Julian
Tan, Tony
author_facet Hong, Chih-Duo
Jiang, Hongjian
Lin, Anthony W.
Markgraf, Oliver
Parsert, Julian
Tan, Tony
contents Automata extraction is a method for synthesising interpretable surrogates for black-box neural models that can be analysed symbolically. Existing techniques assume a finite input alphabet, and thus are not directly applicable to data sequences drawn from continuous domains. We address this challenge with deterministic register automata (DRAs), which extend finite automata with registers that store and compare numeric values. Our main contribution is a framework for robust DRA extraction from black-box models: we develop a polynomial-time robustness checker for DRAs with a fixed number of registers, and combine it with passive and active automata learning algorithms. This combination yields surrogate DRAs with statistical robustness and equivalence guarantees. As a key application, we use the extracted automata to assess the robustness of neural networks: for a given sequence and distance metric, the DRA either certifies local robustness or produces a concrete counterexample. Experiments on recurrent neural networks and transformer architectures show that our framework reliably learns accurate automata and enables principled robustness evaluation. Overall, our results demonstrate that robust DRA extraction effectively bridges neural network interpretability and formal reasoning without requiring white-box access to the underlying network.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_19100
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Extracting Robust Register Automata from Neural Networks over Data Sequences
Hong, Chih-Duo
Jiang, Hongjian
Lin, Anthony W.
Markgraf, Oliver
Parsert, Julian
Tan, Tony
Artificial Intelligence
Formal Languages and Automata Theory
Machine Learning
Automata extraction is a method for synthesising interpretable surrogates for black-box neural models that can be analysed symbolically. Existing techniques assume a finite input alphabet, and thus are not directly applicable to data sequences drawn from continuous domains. We address this challenge with deterministic register automata (DRAs), which extend finite automata with registers that store and compare numeric values. Our main contribution is a framework for robust DRA extraction from black-box models: we develop a polynomial-time robustness checker for DRAs with a fixed number of registers, and combine it with passive and active automata learning algorithms. This combination yields surrogate DRAs with statistical robustness and equivalence guarantees. As a key application, we use the extracted automata to assess the robustness of neural networks: for a given sequence and distance metric, the DRA either certifies local robustness or produces a concrete counterexample. Experiments on recurrent neural networks and transformer architectures show that our framework reliably learns accurate automata and enables principled robustness evaluation. Overall, our results demonstrate that robust DRA extraction effectively bridges neural network interpretability and formal reasoning without requiring white-box access to the underlying network.
title Extracting Robust Register Automata from Neural Networks over Data Sequences
topic Artificial Intelligence
Formal Languages and Automata Theory
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19100