Software
To Be Updated. The following is a list of software in the area of AI and Law and/or Argumentation:
ASPARTIX
Sarah Gaggl
ASPARTIX is a program to compute extensions of argumentation frameworks (AF), which has been implemented in the answer set programming language DLV. With this implementation of ASPARTIX, it is possible to compute all standard extensions for the classical AF (following Dung) such as stable, admissible,complete, grounded and preferred extensions. Furthermore it is also possible to compute all these extensions for preference-based AF’s (PAF’s), value-based AF’s (VAF’s) and bipolar AF’s (BAF’s). In the latter case it is also possible to compute save and complete extensions, as well as distinguish between the classical d-admissible (following Dung), s-admissible (for stable) and c-admissible (for closed) extensions, for which also the respective preferred extensions are available.
Carneades Software
Tom Gordon and the ESTRELLA Project.
Carneades is an argument mapping application, with a graphical user interface, and a software library for building applications supporting various argumentation tasks. It supports: argument mapping and visualization; argument evaluation, applying proof standards and respecting the distribution of the burden of proof; argument construction from defeasible rules, precedent cases, ontologies and testimonial evidence; argument interchange in XML, using the Legal Knowledge Interchange Format (LKIF). The argument construction module uses resource-bounded heuristic strategies to search the space of arguments induced by a set of computational models of various argumentation schemes. The system includes a simple API for extending the system with computational models of other argumentation schemes. Any number of argumentation schemes may be used together, making Carneades an open architecture for hybrid reasoning.
The Carneades Argumentation System
Thomas Gordon
Hermes: Supporting Argumentative Discourse in Multi-Agent Decision Making
Nikos Karacapilidis and Dimitris Papadias.
Hermes is an Argumentation System for discussions on the Web. Arguments and preferences can be expressed and weighted in order to support or challenge a statement. The system supports defeasible and qualitative reasoning. The system uses discourse acts which call a variety of procedures for the propagation of information in the corresponding discussion graph.
Hermes can be used by groups of agents to express their claims and judgements, aiming at informing or convincing, depending on the kind of the interaction. The system includes reasoning mechanisms that monitor the discussion, performing consistency checking and constantly updating the status of the argumentative discourse according to the proof standards involved. It is implemented in Java.
Digalo: Visualise Argumentation
Fraunhofer AIS, part of DUNES.
DUNES: Dialogic and argUmentative Negotiation Educational Software
DUNES Project.
To design, implement and test an environment for collaborative learning through discussion and argumentative interaction on the Web.
ArgKit — java Dung reasoner Dungine
Matthew South, Gerard Vreeswijk, John Fox.
ArgKit is an extensible Java 5 software library intended to assist a developer in building applications that use argumentation. The goal of the Dungine module is to compute Dung acceptability semantics over an arbitrary directed graph where the nodes are arguments and the edges are defeats. It will use argument games to compute the semantics. Unlike other argumentation engines it should be agnostic as to the source of the argument graph. Arguments are represented with the Argument Interchange Format (AIF).
CaSAPI – an assumption-based argumentation system with explicit arguments
Dorian Gaertner, Francesca Toni
CaSAPI is a hybrid argumentation system implemented in Prolog that combines abstract and assumption-based argumentation.
DR-Device — a defeasible logic reasoner for the Semantic Web
Nick Bassiliades, Efstratios Kontopoulos, and Grigoris Antoniou.
DR-DEVICE reasons about RDF metadata over multiple Web sources using defeasible logic rules. The system is implemented on top of CLIPS production rule system. The most important features of DR-DEVICE are the following: support for multiple rule types of defeasible logic, such as strict rules, defeasible rules, and defeaters; support for both classical (strong) negation and negation-as-failure; support for conflicting literals, i.e. derived objects that exclude each other; direct import from the Web of RDF ontologies and data as input facts to the defeasible logic program; direct import from the Web of defeasible logic programs in an XML compliant rule syntax (RuleML); direct export to the Web of the results (conclusions) of the logic program as an RDF document.
VDR-Device — Visual Defeasible Logic Reasoner
Nick Bassiliades, Efstratios Kontopoulos, and Grigoris Antoniou.
DeLP-Server: an Argumentative Reasoning Service
Alejandro Garcia, Guillermo R. Simari
DeLP stands for Defeasible Logic Programming, a knowledge representation language, where defeasible and non-defeasible rules can be expressed. The language has two different negations: classical negation, used for representing contradictory knowledge and negation as failure, used for representing incomplete information. Defeasible reasoning is done using an argumentation formalism.
Araucaria — argument visualisation
Chris Reed and Glenn Rowe
Araucaria is a software tool for analysing arguments. It aids a user in reconstructing and diagramming an argument using a simple point-and-click interface. The software also supports argumentation schemes, and provides a user-customisable set of schemes with which to analyse arguments.
Once arguments have been analysed they can be saved in a portable format called “AML”, the Argument Markup Language, which is based on XML. XML is a flexible language which can easily be used to generate web pages and data with which to populate a database. The definition of AML is available in the file argument.dtd.
LARGO — argument visualisation for reasoning about hypotheticals
Kevin Ashley, Niels Pinkwart, Collin Lynch, and Vincent Aleven
The link takes one to a paper about LARGO; the software is currently unavailable. LARGO is an intelligent tutoring system which helps students learn legal reasoning with hypotheticals. LARGO provides a graphical language to represent arguments and provide feedback on the graphic in the form of reflective questions. Arguments before the US Supreme Court are analysed and transformed into the LARGO format. The skills that the students develop are: proposing a rule-like test for deciding a case, posing hypotheticals to challenge the rule, and responding by analogizing or distinguishing the hypotheticals and/or modifying the proposed test.
Automated Argumentation Systems
Bart Verheij
On this page are several argumentation systems including Argue! and ArguMed 3. Argument-assistance systems assist the user in drafting, generating, and reasoning with arguments. They administer and supervise the argument process. They keep track of issues, assumptions, reasons, conclusions, and counterarguments. They evaluate the justification status of the statements.
Computing credulous acceptance and rejection in argumentation
Bart Verheij
The software computes credulous acceptance and rejection for Dung-style argumentation frameworks. It computes minimal admissible sets containing and attacking the arguments in a theory. It also produces the grounded extension and all preferred extensions (which include the stable extensions). It contains a set of test examples collected by Gerard Vreeswijk.
Rationale — argument visualisation
AusThink
Rationale is the commercial argumentation mapping software from AusThink. It us used in schools and law offices to support rational debate. An attractive feature is the link between the graph and textual output, allowing graphs to be built then delivered as textual reports.
DebateGraph — online argument visualisation
DebatGraph is an online, graphical debate support tool.
Argunet — argument visualisation
Institute of Philosophy, FU Berlin
Argunet is the free, open-source, cross-platform suite for collaborative argument mapping. With Argunet you can reconstruct and visualise complex debates and argumentations. For teamwork, you can create your own project on the Argunet Server.
An Epistemic and Practical Reasoner
Wietske Visser.
The Epistemic and Practical Reasoner is an implementation of an argument-based practical reasoning system. Based on Dung’s abstract argumentation system instantiated with arguments in the form of trees of chained defeasible inferences, it combines some recent theories of argument-based practical reasoning. Epistemic reasoning (about beliefs) is done with grounded sceptical semantics and practical reasoning (about events) is done with preferred credulous semantics. The program is written in Java 6 and has a graphical user interface. Arguments are presented as XML files that conform to an extended version of the Argument Interchange Format and a graph representation for human readability.
Compendium
Simon Buckingham Shum.
Cohere
Simon Buckingham Shum.
ARG!Draw: An Argument Graphs Drawing Tool (not available)
Tangming Yuan, Jenny Schulze.
Authoring Arguments on the Semantic Web using Avicenna (not available)
Iyad Rahwan and Bita Banihashemi
