Accelerated discovery in materials science demands autonomous systems capable of dynamically formulating and solving design problems. In this work, we introduce a novel framework that leverages Bayesian optimization over a problem formulation space to identify optimal design formulations in line with decision-maker preferences. By mapping various design scenarios to a multi attribute utility function, our approach enables the system to balance conflicting objectives such as ductility, yield strength, density, and solidification range without requiring an exact problem definition at the outset. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method through an in silico case study on a Mo-Nb-Ti-V-W alloy system targeted for gas turbine engine blade applications. The framework converges on a sweet spot that satisfies critical performance thresholds, illustrating that integrating problem formulation discovery into the autonomous design loop can significantly streamline the experimental process. Future work will incorporate human feedback to further enhance the adaptability of the system in real-world experimental settings.

Word similarity has many applications to social science and cultural analytics tasks like measuring meaning change over time and making sense of contested terms. Yet traditional similarity methods based on cosine similarity between word embeddings cannot capture the context-dependent, asymmetrical, polysemous nature of semantic similarity. We propose a new measure of similarity, Word Confusion, that reframes semantic similarity in terms of feature-based classification confusion. Word Confusion is inspired by Tversky's suggestion that similarity features be chosen dynamically. Here we train a classifier to map contextual embeddings to word identities and use the classifier confusion (the probability of choosing a confounding word c instead of the correct target word t) as a measure of the similarity of c and t. The set of potential confounding words acts as the chosen features. Our method is comparable to cosine similarity in matching human similarity judgments across several datasets (MEN, WirdSim353, and SimLex), and can measure similarity using predetermined features of interest. We demonstrate our model's ability to make use of dynamic features by applying it to test a hypothesis about changes in the 18th C. meaning of the French word "revolution" from popular to state action during the French Revolution. We hope this reimagining of semantic similarity will inspire the development of new tools that better capture the multi-faceted and dynamic nature of language, advancing the fields of computational social science and cultural analytics and beyond.

Weaknesses: - The first major concern is the limited methodological contribution compared to FDA. The proposed method just aggregates (i.e., sum) FDA objectives of multiple layers and adding the cross-entropy term like other attack methods; in other words, these approaches are straightforward. Although the improvements of the proposed method are meaningful, it is not surprising or interesting results. TMIM/SGM methods do not use the training data for the white-box model while FDA-based frameworks use the data for training auxiliary functions g. In my opinion, access to only pre-trained white-box models largely differs from that to whole training data, and thus the latter uses more knowledge than the former.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told federal lawmakers on Friday that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have seized control over a number of federal computer systems that house data tightly restricted under federal statutes. In some cases, any deviations in the manner in which the data is being used may be not only illegal, the ACLU says, but unconstitutional. DOGE operatives have infiltrated or assumed control over a number of federal agencies that are responsible for managing personnel files on nearly two million federal employees, as well as offices that supply the government with a broad range of software and information technology services. Unauthorized use of sensitive or personally identifiable data as part of an effort to purge the government of ideologically unaligned staff may constitute a violation of federal law. The Privacy Act and the Federal Information Security Modernization Act strictly prohibit, for instance, unauthorized access and use of government personnel data.

The recent open letter regarding AI consciousness on which you report (AI systems could be'caused to suffer' if consciousness achieved, says research, 3 February) highlights a genuine moral problem: if we create conscious AI (whether deliberately or inadvertently) then we would have a duty not to cause it to suffer. What the letter fails to do, however, is to capture what a big "if" this is. Some promising theories of consciousness do indeed open the door to AI consciousness. But other equally promising theories suggest that being conscious requires being an organism. Although we can look for indicators of consciousness in AI, it is very difficult – perhaps impossible – to know whether an AI is actually conscious or merely presenting the outward signs of consciousness.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy discusses how the establishment is responding to the Trump admin's shakeup in Washington, D.C. and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy firing back at'swamp creature' Hillary Clinton. FIRST ON FOX: A top House Republican is moving to make it harder for China to procure advanced U.S. technology amid longstanding concerns about intellectual property theft by Beijing. "My proposed legislation will establish safeguards to prevent future shocks like China's development of DeepSeek using American technology. In addition to the chips China reportedly stockpiled, it appears China used chips under the current export control threshold to achieve this AI breakthrough," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital. "This scenario should be a wakeup call -- if you give the CCP an inch, it will take a mile. The CCP's craftiness is coupled with a total disregard for legal and security considerations. We already know that the CCP uses technology to oppress its own citizens and to commit acts of espionage and sabotage against the United States, including major cyberattacks."

Rep. Brandon Gill, R- Tex., got into a heated exchange with CNN host Pamela Brown over the Trump administration's crackdown on government spending, specifically for public broadcasting at PBS and NPR. By 1970, both PBS and NPR sprang forth from the CBP, and Americans were treated to the "News Hour," "Sesame Street," British comedies and science programming at a time when there were only three networks, cable TV was strictly for the boondocks, and VCRs were science fiction. A big part of the reason that programming was limited was that production costs for broadcasting were incredibly high. In David Grzybowski's book, 'The Big Story,' he cites Philadelphia news anchor Larry Kane talking about how hard it was during the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear scare to just get a live TV shot from Harrisburg to Philly: "I know we had a live microwave, but the microwaves didn't go that far. I think we sought some satellite time. The satellite times in those days were 5,000 a minute."

The Israeli army has demolished several Palestinian homes in the Jenin refugee camp as it continues the deadly raids across the occupied West Bank that it launched on January 21. Explosions echoed throughout the camp overnight as Israeli forces demolished the civilian homes, Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, reported on Friday. Witnesses said Israeli forces reinforced their presence around the camp and conducted intensive drone surveillance. The army also continues to besiege Jenin Governmental Hospital, having bulldozed the main entrance and the main road leading to it earlier in its raids. Earlier this week, it carried out the demolition of residential blocks in Jenin for the first time since 2002, as reported by Jenin Governor Kamal Abu al-Rub.

Meta has partnered with UNESCO on a new plan to improve translation and speech recognition AI, Techcrunch reported. As part of its Language Technology Partner Program, Meta is seeking collaborators willing to donate at least 10 hours of speech recordings with transcriptions, large written texts (200-plus sentences) and sets of translated sentences. The aim is to focus on "underserved languages, in support of UNESCO's work," Meta wrote in a blog post. So far, Meta and UNESCO have signed on the government of Nunavut, a northern Canadian territory. The aim is to develop translation systems for the Intuit languages used there, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun.

It feels like no one should have to say this, and yet we are in a situation where it needs to be said, very loudly and clearly, before it's too late to do anything about it: The United States is not a startup. If you run it like one, it will break. The onslaught of news about Elon Musk's takeover of the federal government's core institutions is altogether too much--in volume, in magnitude, in the sheer chaotic absurdity of a 19-year-old who goes by "Big Balls" helping the world's richest man consolidate power. There's an easy way to process it, though. Donald Trump may be the president of the United States, but Musk has made himself its CEO.