Meta-Interpretive LEarning with Reuse

Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) is a research field at the intersection between machine learning and logic programming, focusing on developing a formal framework for inductively learning relational descriptions in the form of logic programs from examples and background knowledge. As an emerging method of ILP, Meta-Interpretive Learning (MIL) leverages the specialization of a set of higher-order metarules to learn logic programs. In MIL, the input includes a set of examples, background knowledge, and a set of metarules, while the output is a logic program. MIL executes a depth-first traversal search, where its program search space expands polynomially with the number of predicates in the provided background knowledge and exponentially with the number of clauses in the program, sometimes even leading to search collapse. To address this challenge, this study introduces a strategy that employs the concept of reuse, specifically through the integration of auxiliary predicates, to reduce the number of clauses in programs and improve the learning efficiency. This approach focuses on the proactive identification and reuse of common program patterns. To operationalize this strategy, we introduce MILER, a novel method integrating a predicate generator, program learner, and program evaluator. MILER leverages frequent subgraph mining techniques to detect common patterns from a limited dataset of training samples, subsequently embedding these patterns as auxiliary predicates into the background knowledge. In our experiments involving two Visual Question Answering (VQA) tasks and one program synthesis task, we assessed MILER’s approach to utilizing reusable program patterns as auxiliary predicates. The results indicate that, by incorporating these patterns, MILER identifies reusable program patterns, reduces program clauses, and directly decreases the likelihood of timeouts compared to traditional MIL. This leads to improved learning success rates by optimizing computational efforts.