Towards Data-and Knowledge-Driven Artificial Intelligence: A Survey on Neuro-Symbolic Computing

Abstract: Neural-symbolic computing (NeSy), which pursues the integration of the symbolic and statistical paradigms of cognition, has been an active research area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for many years. As NeSy shows promise of reconciling the advantages of reasoning and interpretability of symbolic representation and robust learning in neural networks, it may serve as a catalyst for the next generation of AI. In the present paper, we provide a systematic overview of the important and recent developments of research on NeSy AI. Firstly, we introduce study history of this area, covering early work and foundations. We further discuss background concepts and identify key driving factors behind the development of NeSy. Afterward, we categorize recent landmark approaches along several main characteristics that underline this research paradigm, including neural-symbolic integration, knowledge representation, knowledge embedding, and functionality. Then, we briefly discuss the successful application of modern NeSy approaches in several domains. Finally, we identify the open problems together with potential future research directions. This survey is expected to help new researchers enter this rapidly-developing field and accelerate progress towards data-and knowledge-driven AI.