用共享参数前馈网络精确模拟非确定有限自动机,可训练且可解释。
A Constructive Framework for Nondeterministic Automata via Time-Shared, Depth-Unrolled Feedforward Networks
- 将状态和转移编码为二进制向量与稀疏矩阵,通过阈值更新实现非确定性分支。
- 理论上证明任意正则语言均可被此类网络精确识别,参数量不随输入长度增长。
- 实验证明模型在接受度、状态传播和ε闭包上达到完美或接近完美匹配。
我们提出一种形式化且构造性的框架,利用时间共享、深度展开的前馈网络(TS-FFNs)模拟非确定有限自动机(NFAs),即具有共享参数的无环展开计算,功能等价于展开的循环或状态空间模型。不同于依赖显式循环结构或事后提取的方法,我们的公式将自动机状态符号化编码为二进制向量,转移表示为稀疏矩阵变换,非确定性分支(包括ε-闭包)通过共享阈值更新的复合实现。我们证明,每个正则语言均可被这种共享参数展开前馈网络精确识别,且参数数量独立于输入长度。该构造建立了NFAs与神经网络之间的构造性等价关系,并展示了其“可学习性”:这些网络可通过监督接受数据上的梯度下降训练以恢复目标自动机行为。这一可学习性是本文核心,由命题5.1形式化。大量实验验证了理论结果,在接受度、状态传播和闭包动态上均取得完美或近似完美一致。本工作澄清了自动机理论与现代神经架构之间的对应关系,表明展开前馈网络可执行精确、可解释且可训练的符号计算。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
We present a formal and constructive simulation framework for nondeterministic finite automata (NFAs) using time-shared, depth-unrolled feedforward networks (TS-FFNs), i.e., acyclic unrolled computations with shared parameters that are functionally equivalent to unrolled recurrent or state-space models. Unlike prior approaches that rely on explicit recurrent architectures or post hoc extraction methods, our formulation symbolically encodes automaton states as binary vectors, transitions as sparse matrix transformations, and nondeterministic branching-including $\varepsilon$-closures-as compositions of shared thresholded updates. We prove that every regular language can be recognized exactly by such a shared-parameter unrolled feedforward network, with parameter count independent of input length. Our construction yields a constructive equivalence between NFAs and neural networks and demonstrates \emph{empirical learnability}: these networks can be trained via gradient descent on supervised acceptance data to recover the target automaton behavior. This learnability, formalized in Proposition 5.1, is the crux of this work. Extensive experiments validate the theoretical results, achieving perfect or near-perfect agreement on acceptance, state propagation, and closure dynamics. This work clarifies the correspondence between automata theory and modern neural architectures, showing that unrolled feedforward networks can perform precise, interpretable, and trainable symbolic computation.
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