LASIGE Talks are fortnightly/monthly events to publicize recently distinguished publications or ongoing cutting-edge work by researchers from the research centre, consolidating the scientific culture of the LASIGE community.

Title: The Future is Neuro-Symbolic: Where Has It Been and Where Is It Going?
Speaker: Vaishak Belle (Alan Turing Institute, University of Edinburgh)
Date: July 22th, 2026, Wednesday, 12:00
Where: C6.3.27
Invited by: Cátia Pesquita (LASIGE, Ciências ULisboa)

12:00 Talk by Vaishak Belle
12:40 Q&A + Break for snacks & coffee

Summary: This report explores the evolution and current state of neurosymbolic artificial intelligence, an approach that integrates neural network capabilities with symbolic reasoning. We trace the historical context from early AI aspirations to modern implementations and successes, highlighting key paradigms, and other logical and semantical considerations. We argue against the “scaling is all you need” hypothesis, and point to persistent challenges in reliable symbolic reasoning with deep and large models. Then we conclude by suggesting that despite numerous implementation choices and the “broad church” nature of neuro-symbolic AI, these approaches offer the most promising path towards AI systems that combine pattern recognition with robust reasoning, particularly for applications requiring structured knowledge, explainability, and trustworthiness. Publication: https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v40i48.42130