Leveraging LLMs for Formal Software Requirements -- Challenges and Prospects

Abstract: Software correctness is ensured mathematically through formal verification, which involves the resources of generating formal requirement specifications and having an implementation that must be verified. Tools such as model-checkers and theorem provers ensure software correctness by verifying the implementation against the specification. Formal methods deployment is regularly enforced in the development of safety-critical systems e.g. aerospace, medical devices and autonomous systems. Generating these specifications from informal and ambiguous natural language requirements remains the key challenge. Our project, VERIFAI^{1}, aims to investigate automated and semi-automated approaches to bridge this gap, using techniques from NLP, ontology-based domain modelling, artefact reuse, and LLMs. This position paper presents a preliminary synthesis of relevant literature to identify recurring challenges and prospective research directions in the generation of verifiable specifications from informal requirements.