TU Wien Informatics

20 Years

Byron Cook: The Business of Proof

  • 2024-04-17
  • Event

Prof. Byron Cook, Vice President at Amazon Web Services, discusses Amazon’s novel approach to applying formal mechanical reasoning.

Byron Cook: The Business of Proof
Picture: Byron Cook / edt.: TU Wien Informatics

Abstract

With only a few niche exceptions, the software industry had not previously figured out how to make deep use of formal mechanical reasoning based on mathematical logic. At Amazon we have recently seen tremendous adoption of the approach by product groups, with a variety of customer-facing launches that use automated reasoning, and numerous internal proof projects. This talk describes those projects, and tries explain what went well at Amazon. The talk also describes challenges that we face to scale the approach to the next level.

About Byron Cook

Byron Cook is Professor of Computer Science at University College London (UCL); as well as Vice President and Distinguished Scientist at Amazon Web Services. Byron’s has worked in a variety of areas over the years, including computer and network security, program analysis and verification, programming languages, theorem proving, hardware design, operating systems, and biological systems.

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