Microsoft Research Focus: AI, Program Synthesis, and System Advancements
Research Focus: Week of June 19, 2023
This post highlights notable publications, events, code/datasets, new hires, and other milestones from Microsoft Research. It covers advancements in Responsible AI, information retrieval, program synthesis, memory management, network functions, and concurrency testing.
NEW RESOURCE
Responsible AI Maturity Model
As AI adoption grows and regulations loom, organizations need robust practices for responsible AI (RAI). Microsoft researchers have developed the Responsible AI Maturity Model (RAI MM), a framework with 24 dimensions to help organizations assess and improve their RAI maturity. Derived from extensive interviews, the RAI MM provides a roadmap for progress, enabling teams to identify their current standing and future goals in responsible AI development and deployment.
NEW RESEARCH
FoundWright: A System to Help People Re-find Pages from Their Web-history
Re-finding previously discovered web content is a common but often challenging task. People may forget specific details, making traditional search difficult. FoundWright, a new system from Microsoft researchers, addresses this by leveraging language transformer models to expand search capabilities. It allows users to define concepts that attract semantically similar content, complementing traditional search methods and reducing cognitive load.
Trace-Guided Inductive Synthesis of Recursive Functional Programs
This paper, which received a distinguished paper award at PLDI 2023, introduces a novel trace-guided approach to synthesizing recursive functional programs from examples. The method augments the search space with recursion traces and uses a new version space algebra for efficient manipulation. Implemented in the tool SyRup, it demonstrates improved success rates with fewer and higher-quality examples compared to existing synthesizers.
Wait-Free Weak Reference Counting
Reference counting is crucial for memory management, but cycles can cause issues. This research proposes a wait-free algorithm for weak reference counting, enhancing performance over classic implementations. The algorithm, verified with the Starling tool and implemented in C++, offers improved best-case performance and a more complex version for better worst-case scenarios.
Disaggregating Stateful Network Functions
To overcome the complexity and cost of current network function implementations in public clouds, this paper presents a new design that disaggregates these functions into shared resource pools. Utilizing appliances with integrated ARM cores and ASICs, this approach offers better reliability and performance, especially for skewed workloads, at a lower per-server cost. The research was published at NSDI 2023.
Industrial-Strength Controlled Concurrency Testing for C# Programs with Coyote
Testing concurrent programs is challenging due to non-determinism and state-space explosion. The open-source tool Coyote, developed by Microsoft researchers, addresses these issues for C# programs. This research, which won a 2023 Best Software Science Paper award, provides a robust solution for controlled and reproducible concurrency testing.
Related Publications
- Disaggregating Stateful Network Functions
- Wait-Free Weak Reference Counting
- Industrial-Strength Controlled Concurrency Testing for C# Programs with Coyote
- Trace-Guided Inductive Synthesis of Recursive Functional Programs
- Responsible AI Maturity Model
- FoundWright: A System to Help People Re-find Pages from Their Web-history
Continue Reading
- Research Focus: Week of November 22, 2023
- Research Focus: Week of November 8, 2023
- Research Focus: Week of August 14, 2023
- Research Focus: Week of July 17, 2023
Research Areas
- Artificial intelligence
- Human-computer interaction
- Programming languages and software engineering
- Systems and networking
Research Groups
- Systems | India
- Azure Research - Security and Privacy
- HUE: Human Understanding and Empathy
Related Projects
- Project Verona
- Coyote
Related Labs
- Microsoft Research Lab - India
- Microsoft Research Lab - Redmond
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Original article available at: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/research-focus-week-of-june-19-2023/