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Andrew Ferraiuolo

Publications and source records attributed to Andrew Ferraiuolo.

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Advancing Mathematics Research with AI-Driven Formal Proof Search

Large language models (LLMs) increasingly excel at mathematical reasoning, but their unreliability limits their utility in mathematics research. A mitigation is using LLMs to generate formal proofs in languages like Lean. We perform the first large-scale evaluation of this method's ability to solve open problems. Our most capable agent autonomously resolved 9 of 353 open Erdős problems at the per-problem cost of a few hundred dollars, proved 44/492 OEIS conjectures, and is being deployed in combinatorics, optimization, graph theory, algebraic geometry, and quantum optics research. A basic agent alternating LLM-based generation with Lean-based verification replicated the Erdős successes but proved costlier on the hardest problems. These findings demonstrate the power of AI-aided formal proof search and shed light on the agent designs that enable it.

cs.AI

On the Decompositionality of Neural Networks

Recent advances in deep neural networks have achieved state-of-the-art performance across vision and natural language processing tasks. In practice, however, most models are treated as monolithic black-box functions, limiting maintainability, component-wise optimization, and systematic testing and verification. Despite extensive work on pruning and empirical decomposition, the field still lacks a principled semantic notion of when a neural network can be meaningfully decomposed. We introduce neural decompositionality, a formal notion defined as a semantic-preserving abstraction over neural architectures. Our key insight is that decompositionality should be characterized by the preservation of semantic behavior along the model's decision boundary, which governs classification outcomes. This yields a semantic contract between the original model and its components, enabling a rigorous formulation of decomposition. Building on this foundation, we develop a boundary-aware framework, SAVED (Semantic-Aware Verification-Driven Decomposition), which operationalizes the proposed definition. SAVED combines counterexample mining over low logic-margin inputs, probabilistic coverage, and structure-aware pruning to construct decompositions that preserve decision-boundary semantics. We evaluate our approach on CNNs, language Transformers, and Vision Transformers. Results show clear architectural differences: language Transformers largely preserve boundary semantics under decomposition, whereas vision models frequently violate the decompositionality criterion, indicating intrinsic limits. Overall, our work establishes decompositionality as a formally definable and empirically testable property, providing a foundation for modular reasoning about neural networks.

cs.LO

MPruner: Optimizing Neural Network Size with CKA-Based Mutual Information Pruning

Determining the optimal size of a neural network is critical, as it directly impacts runtime performance and memory usage. Pruning is a well-established model compression technique that reduces the size of neural networks while mathematically guaranteeing accuracy preservation. However, many recent pruning methods overlook the global contributions of individual model components, making it difficult to ensure that a pruned model meets the desired dataset and performance requirements. To address these challenges, we developed a new pruning algorithm, MPruner, that leverages mutual information through vector similarity. MPruner utilizes layer clustering with the Centered Kernel Alignment (CKA) similarity metric, allowing us to incorporate global information from the neural network for more precise and efficient layer-wise pruning. We evaluated MPruner across various architectures and configurations, demonstrating its versatility and providing practical guidelines. MPruner achieved up to a 50% reduction in parameters and memory usage for CNN and transformer-based models, with minimal to no loss in accuracy.

cs.LG