LIRON COHEN

Senior Academic

Evidence-Tracked Tape Semantics for Probabilistic Computation

Liron Cohen, Tomer Samara

A standard intensional account of probabilistic computation represents a randomized program as a deterministic computation that consumes an explicit random tape. This yields a two-layer perspective: an intensional layer that makes reuse of randomness and correlation visible, and an extensional layer obtained by interpreting tapes under a chosen probability measure. We develop an evidence-tracked tape semantics using the monadic-core-to-evidenced-frame pipeline (and its induced realizability tripos), obtaining a higher-order logic in which entailments are witnessed by uniform evidence transformers. Quantitative statements are recovered by interpretation: once a tape measure is fixed, probabilities and expectations arise by extracting numerical summaries from tape-indexed predicates, and entailments yield sound inequalities, with an almost-sure quotient supporting probability-one reasoning. We also study intensional principles that are lost at the level of laws, including proof-relevant transport along realizable tape-rewiring maps and a canonical splitting discipline for stream tapes enforcing independent draws. Finally, we relate tape-based reasoning to an extensional law semantics via pushforward, isolating a probability-one must abstraction as a sound summary of tape-based proofs.

Publication language English
Publication status Published - 15.07.2026
Article Number 13

Keywords

evidenced frames
monadic combinatory algebras
probabilistic programming
program logic
random tapes
realizability

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software
Other files and links
Link to publication in Scopus