AF-XRAY: Visual Explanation and Resolution of Ambiguity in Legal Argumentation Frameworks
This addresses the problem of ambiguity in legal reasoning for non-experts, but it is incremental as it builds on existing formal approaches with new visualization and analysis features.
The paper tackles the challenge of identifying ambiguity and explaining argument acceptance in legal argumentation frameworks for non-experts, resulting in AF-XRAY, an open-source toolkit that transforms ambiguous scenarios into grounded solutions through systematic generation of critical attack sets.
Argumentation frameworks (AFs) provide formal approaches for legal reasoning, but identifying sources of ambiguity and explaining argument acceptance remains challenging for non-experts. We present AF-XRAY, an open-source toolkit for exploring, analyzing, and visualizing abstract AFs in legal reasoning. AF-XRAY introduces: (i) layered visualizations based on game-theoretic argument length revealing well-founded derivation structures; (ii) classification of attack edges by semantic roles (primary, secondary, blunders); (iii) overlay visualizations of alternative 2-valued solutions on ambiguous 3-valued grounded semantics; and (iv) identification of critical attack sets whose suspension resolves undecided arguments. Through systematic generation of critical attack sets, AF-XRAY transforms ambiguous scenarios into grounded solutions, enabling users to pinpoint specific causes of ambiguity and explore alternative resolutions. We use real-world legal cases (e.g., Wild Animals as modeled by Bench-Capon) to show that our tool supports teleological legal reasoning by revealing how different assumptions lead to different justified conclusions.