Generative AI and language models have caught the imagination of humanity and are the most researched topic in AI. However, their interactions with humans can pose many risks, especially as these interactions can be non-deterministic, even when the temperature of the model is set to zero. Emphasising safety underscores the significance of this research for responsible AI development. It is well known that determinism is essential for safety-critical systems.

In this talk, we discuss different notions of determinism in literature and conceptualise a definition of a synchronous language model as a deterministic alternative. Next, we consider the problem of distributed execution, which poses further challenges to determinism. We then introduce the concept of logically synchronous language models (LSLMs), which are deterministic by construction. We hypothesise that LSLMs are not only ideal for human-in-the-loop safe operation but also offer promising improvements in efficiency and energy consumption during inference. We report our findings by utilising the Callisto simulator for logical synchrony networks as an accurate simulation platform for logically synchronous systems.

Systems companies struggle to integrate into complex designs components coming from various providers. The news of recalls and re-certifications in the automotive and aerospace industries is an eloquent testimony to the difficulty of system design. Many voices from government agencies, industry, and academia have thus called for the development of theoretical and practical tools to provide assurance of the correctness of our complex systems.

Assume-guarantee contracts provide a theoretical and methodological framework to compositionally design systems with rigorous guarantees. In this talk, we will introduce contracts and their algebraic operations through case studies in space mission design and autonomous driving that show where current system design methodologies struggle. We will also introduce Pacti, a software package that enables engineers to carry out system-level design using contracts.