Studying low-likelihood high-impact extreme weather events in a warming world is a significant and challenging task for current ensemble forecasting systems. While these systems presently use up to 100 members, larger ensembles could enrich the sampling of internal variability. They may capture the long tails associated with climate hazards better than traditional ensemble sizes. Due to computational constraints, it is infeasible to generate huge ensembles (comprised of 1,000-10,000 members) with traditional, physics-based numerical models. In this two-part paper, we replace traditional numerical simulations with machine learning (ML) to generate hindcasts of huge ensembles. In Part I, we construct an ensemble weather forecasting system based on Spherical Fourier Neural Operators (SFNO), and we discuss important design decisions for constructing such an ensemble. The ensemble represents model uncertainty through perturbed-parameter techniques, and it represents initial condition uncertainty through bred vectors, which sample the fastest growing modes of the forecast. Using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) as a baseline, we develop an evaluation pipeline composed of mean, spectral, and extreme diagnostics. Using large-scale, distributed SFNOs with 1.1 billion learned parameters, we achieve calibrated probabilistic forecasts. As the trajectories of the individual members diverge, the ML ensemble mean spectra degrade with lead time, consistent with physical expectations. However, the individual ensemble members' spectra stay constant with lead time. Therefore, these members simulate realistic weather states, and the ML ensemble thus passes a crucial spectral test in the literature. The IFS and ML ensembles have similar Extreme Forecast Indices, and we show that the ML extreme weather forecasts are reliable and discriminating.

Under-canopy agricultural robots require robust navigation capabilities to enable full autonomy but struggle with tight row turning between crop rows due to degraded GPS reception, visual aliasing, occlusion, and complex vehicle dynamics. We propose an imitation learning approach using diffusion policies to learn row turning behaviors from demonstrations provided by human operators or privileged controllers. Simulation experiments in a corn field environment show potential in learning this task with only visual observations and velocity states. However, challenges remain in maintaining control within rows and handling varied initial conditions, highlighting areas for future improvement.

Worries about AI often imagine doomsday scenarios where systems escape control or even understanding. But there are nearer-term harms we should take seriously: that AI could jeopardize public discourse; cement biases in loan decisions, judging or hiring; or disrupt creative industries. However, we foresee a different, but no less urgent, class of risks: those stemming from relationships with nonhuman agents. AI companionship is no longer theoretical--our analysis of a million ChatGPT interaction logs reveals that the second most popular use of AI is sexual role-playing. We are already starting to invite AIs into our lives as friends, lovers, mentors, therapists, and teachers.

Achieving precise target jumping with legged robots poses a significant challenge due to the long flight phase and the uncertainties inherent in contact dynamics and hardware. Forcefully attempting these agile motions on hardware could result in severe failures and potential damage. Motivated by these challenging problems, we propose an Iterative Learning Control (ILC) approach that aims to learn and refine jumping skills from easy to difficult, instead of directly learning these challenging tasks. We verify that learning from simplicity can enhance safety and target jumping accuracy over trials. Compared to other ILC approaches for legged locomotion, our method can tackle the problem of a long flight phase where control input is not available. In addition, our approach allows the robot to apply what it learns from a simple jumping task to accomplish more challenging tasks within a few trials directly in hardware, instead of learning from scratch. We validate the method via extensive experiments in the A1 model and hardware for various jumping tasks. Starting from a small jump (e.g., a forward leap of 40cm), our learning approach empowers the robot to accomplish a variety of challenging targets, including jumping onto a 20cm high box, jumping to a greater distance of up to 60cm, as well as performing jumps while carrying an unknown payload of 2kg. Our framework can allow the robot to reach the desired position and orientation targets with approximate errors of 1cm and 1 degree within a few trials.

The growing popularity of Electric Vehicles (EVs) poses unique challenges for grid operators and infrastructure, which requires effectively managing these vehicles' integration into the grid. Identification of EVs charging is essential to electricity Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) for better planning and managing the distribution grid. One critical aspect is the ability to accurately identify the presence of EV charging in the grid. EV charging identification using smart meter readings obtained from behind-the-meter devices is a challenging task that enables effective managing the integration of EVs into the existing power grid. Different from the existing supervised models that require addressing the imbalance problem caused by EVs and non-EVs data, we propose a novel unsupervised memory-based transformer (M-TR) that can run in real-time (online) to detect EVs charging from a streaming smart meter. It dynamically leverages coarse-scale historical information using an M-TR encoder from an extended global temporal window, in conjunction with an M-TR decoder that concentrates on a limited time frame, local window, aiming to capture the fine-scale characteristics of the smart meter data. The M-TR is based on an anomaly detection technique that does not require any prior knowledge about EVs charging profiles, nor it does only require real power consumption data of non-EV users. In addition, the proposed model leverages the power of transfer learning. The M-TR is compared with different state-of-the-art methods and performs better than other unsupervised learning models. The model can run with an excellent execution time of 1.2 sec. for 1-minute smart recordings.

As Large Language Models (LLMs) gain traction, their reliance on power-hungry GPUs places ever-increasing energy demands, raising environmental and monetary concerns. Inference dominates LLM workloads, presenting a critical challenge for providers: minimizing energy costs under Service-Level Objectives (SLOs) that ensure optimal user experience. In this paper, we present \textit{throttLL'eM}, a framework that reduces energy consumption while meeting SLOs through the use of instance and GPU frequency scaling. \textit{throttLL'eM} features mechanisms that project future KV cache usage and batch size. Leveraging a Machine-Learning (ML) model that receives these projections as inputs, \textit{throttLL'eM} manages performance at the iteration level to satisfy SLOs with reduced frequencies and instance sizes. We show that the proposed ML model achieves $R^2$ scores greater than 0.97 and miss-predicts performance by less than 1 iteration per second on average. Experimental results on LLM inference traces show that \textit{throttLL'eM} achieves up to 43.8\% lower energy consumption and an energy efficiency improvement of at least $1.71\times$ under SLOs, when compared to NVIDIA's Triton server.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a widely developed and adopted technology across entire industry sectors. Integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations with AI investments is crucial for ensuring ethical and sustainable technological advancement. Particularly from an investor perspective, this integration not only mitigates risks but also enhances long-term value creation by aligning AI initiatives with broader societal goals. Yet, this area has been less explored in both academia and industry. To bridge the gap, we introduce a novel ESG-AI framework, which is developed based on insights from engagements with 28 companies and comprises three key components. The framework provides a structured approach to this integration, developed in collaboration with industry practitioners. The ESG-AI framework provides an overview of the environmental and social impacts of AI applications, helping users such as investors assess the materiality of AI use. Moreover, it enables investors to evaluate a company's commitment to responsible AI through structured engagements and thorough assessment of specific risk areas. We have publicly released the framework and toolkit in April 2024, which has received significant attention and positive feedback from the investment community. This paper details each component of the framework, demonstrating its applicability in real-world contexts and its potential to guide ethical AI investments.

Modern hardware architectures for Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), other than targeting high performance, aim at dissipating limited energy. Reducing the data movement cost between the computing cores and the memory is a way to mitigate the energy consumption. Systolic arrays are suitable architectures to achieve this objective: they use multiple processing elements that communicate each other to maximize data utilization, based on proper dataflows like the weight stationary and row stationary. Motivated by this, we have proposed TrIM, an innovative dataflow based on a triangular movement of inputs, and capable to reduce the number of memory accesses by one order of magnitude when compared to state-of-the-art systolic arrays. In this paper, we present a TrIM-based hardware architecture for CNNs. As a showcase, the accelerator is implemented onto a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to execute the VGG-16 CNN. The architecture achieves a peak throughput of 453.6 Giga Operations per Second, outperforming a state-of-the-art row stationary systolic array by ~5.1x in terms of memory accesses, and being up to ~12.2x more energy-efficient than other FPGA accelerators.

In response to stringent emission reduction targets imposed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the European Green Deal's Fit for 55 legislation package, the maritime industry has shifted its focus towards decarbonization. This abstract introduces the Zero Emission Sea Transporter (ZEST) project, designed to address this issue activities: by developing a zero-emissions multi-purpose catamaran for short sea routes, shown in Figure 1. Decarbonization Technologies: ZEST provides a test The ZEST [1] is envisioned as a vessel and a multifaceted bed for various decarbonization technologies, methodologies, research platform with a broad spectrum of applications. It is a platform for evaluating objectives encompass supporting the research activities of the alternative propulsion systems, including fuel cells CMMI Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute and its vast and hybrid systems and testing various alternative fuels partners network, serving as a testing ground for industrial in conventional internal combustion engines, such as technologies, and aiding CMMI's vocational education and gaseous and liquid bio-fuels and blends with fossil fuels. Navigational Autonomy: The project involves designing, into distinct activities, each addressing critical aspects of testing, and validating algorithms for navigational sustainable maritime transport and education and training autonomy.

Federated learning (FL) involves several clients that share with a fusion center (FC), the model each client has trained with its own data. Conventional FL, which can be interpreted as an estimation or distortion-based approach, ignores the final use of model information (MI) by the FC and the other clients. In this paper, we introduce a novel FL framework in which the FC uses an aggregate version of the MI to make decisions that affect the client's utility functions. Clients cannot choose the decisions and can only use the MI reported to the FC to maximize their utility. Depending on the alignment between the client and FC utilities, the client may have an individual interest in adding strategic noise to the model. This general framework is stated and specialized to the case of clustering, in which noisy cluster representative information is reported. This is applied to the problem of power consumption scheduling. In this context, utility non-alignment occurs, for instance, when the client wants to consume when the price of electricity is low, whereas the FC wants the consumption to occur when the total power is the lowest. This is illustrated with aggregated real data from Ausgrid \cite{ausgrid}. Our numerical analysis clearly shows that the client can increase his utility by adding noise to the model reported to the FC. Corresponding results and source codes can be downloaded from \cite{source-code}.