Wed 17 Jun 2026 16:10 - 16:30 at Flatirons 2 - Abstract Interpretation Chair(s): Mukund Raghothaman

How to construct globally sound abstract interpreters to safely approximate program behaviors remains a bottleneck in abstract interpretation. In this paper, we show the potential of using state-of-the-art LLMs to automate this tedious process. Focusing on the neural network verification area, we synthesize non-trivial sound abstract transformers across diverse abstract domains using LLMs to search within infinite space from scratch. We formalize the synthesis task as a constrained optimization problem, for which we design a novel mathematically grounded cost function that measures the degree of unsoundness of each generated candidate transformer, while enforcing hard syntactic and semantic validity constraints. Building on this formulation, we introduce SAIL, a novel unified framework that combines model generation, syntactic and semantic validation, and cost-function-based refinement to synthesize globally sound abstract transformers. Evaluation results show that SAIL not only matches the performance of manually designed transformers, but also is able to synthesize sound and high-precision transformers that do not exist in the literature for complex non-linear operators.

Wed 17 Jun

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16:10 - 17:50
Abstract InterpretationPLDI Research Papers at Flatirons 2
Chair(s): Mukund Raghothaman University of Southern California
16:10
20m
Talk
SAIL: Sound Abstract Interpreters with LLMs
PLDI Research Papers
Qiuhan Gu University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Avaljot Singh University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Gagandeep Singh University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
DOI
16:30
20m
Talk
Evolving Abstract Transformers for Gradient-Guided, Adaptable Abstract Interpretation
PLDI Research Papers
Shaurya Gomber University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Debangshu Banerjee University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Gagandeep Singh University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
DOI Pre-print
16:50
20m
Talk
Abstract Interpretation with Confidence
PLDI Research Papers
Yuanfeng Shi Peking University, Ziyue Jin Peking University, Xin Zhang Peking University
DOI
17:10
20m
Talk
Optimism in Equality Saturation
PLDI Research Papers
Russel Arbore University of California at Berkeley, Alvin Cheung University of California at Berkeley, Max Willsey University of California at Berkeley
DOI Pre-print