Inference procedures and engine for probabilistic argumentation

Abstract

Probabilistic Argumentation (PA) is a recent line of research in AI aiming to combine the strengths of argumentation and probabilistic reasoning. Though several models of PA have been proposed, the development of practical applications is still hindered by the lack of inference procedures and reasoning engines. In this paper, we present a reduction method to compute a recently proposed model of PA called PABA. Using the method we design inference procedures to compute the credulous semantics, the ideal semantics and the grounded semantics for a general class of PABA frameworks, that we refer to as Bayesian PABA frameworks. We also show that, though restricting to Bayesian PABA frameworks, the inference procedures can be used to compute other PA models thanks to simple translations. Finally, we implement the inference procedures to obtain a multi-semantics engine for probabilistic argumentation and demonstrate its usage.