BLOG: probabilistic models with unknown objects

Abstract

This paper introduces and illustrates BLOG, a formal language for defining probability models over worlds with unknown objects and identity uncertainty. BLOG unifies and extends several existing approaches. Subject to certain acyclicity constraints, every BLOG model specifies a unique probability distribution over first-order model structures that can contain varying and unbounded numbers of objects. Furthermore, complete inference algorithms exist for a large fragment of the language. We also introduce a probabilistic form of Skolemization for handling evidence.