Robust Classification in ML: A Topological Semantics Approach

Abstract

Robust classification is commonly understood as the stability of a classifier under small perturbations (often adversarial) of input data. In this paper, we propose a logical framework for robust classification grounded in topological semantics for modal logic. Evaluation points are feature vectors representing machine-readable objects, and formulas express explicit classifications. Robustness is interpreted geometrically as local truth persistence: a classification is robust at a point if it holds throughout some non-empty open neighbourhood of that point. Building on this perspective, we introduce a logical language with a robustness modality interpreted over S4 topological spaces, together with a robustness-sensitive conditional connective. This conditional connective captures global inclusion relations between robust regions and other properties of the classifier: it holds at a point when the neighbourhood witnessing the robustness of one formula is contained in the truth set of another. In this way, robust classifications can be systematically linked to classification conditions. We provide a sound and complete axiomatisation of the resulting logic. Finally, we introduce Minimal Robust Models, a constructive method for generating models from specified robustness constraints, which yields formal tools for analysing, explaining, and structuring robust classification behaviour.