Government
Russia strikes Kharkiv following Ukraine's mass drone attack
At least 47 people, including five children, were injured on Sunday after Russian missiles struck a shopping mall and events complex in Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv, officials said. Earlier in the day, Russia said Kyiv had launched one of the biggest drone attacks against it since the full-scale war began, targeting power plants and an oil refinery, while Moscow's forces made further gains toward a key town in eastern Ukraine. The Kharkiv attack prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to renew calls on allies to allow Kyiv to fire Western-supplied missiles deeper into enemy territory and reduce the military threat Russia poses.
It is Time to Develop an Auditing Framework to Promote Value Aware Chatbots
The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 marked the beginning of a new era in AI, the availability of generative AI tools for everyone to use. ChatGPT and other similar chatbots boast a wide range of capabilities from answering student homework questions to creating music and art. Given the large amounts of human data chatbots are built on, it is inevitable that they will inherit human errors and biases. These biases have the potential to inflict significant harm or increase inequity on different subpopulations. Because chatbots do not have an inherent understanding of societal values, they may create new content that is contrary to established norms. Examples of concerning generated content includes child pornography, inaccurate facts, and discriminatory posts. In this position paper, we argue that the speed of advancement of this technology requires us, as computer and data scientists, to mobilize and develop a values-based auditing framework containing a community established standard set of measurements to monitor the health of different chatbots and LLMs. To support our argument, we use a simple audit template to share the results of basic audits we conduct that are focused on measuring potential bias in search engine style tasks, code generation, and story generation. We identify responses from GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 that are both consistent and not consistent with values derived from existing law. While the findings come as no surprise, they do underscore the urgency of developing a robust auditing framework for openly sharing results in a consistent way so that mitigation strategies can be developed by the academic community, government agencies, and companies when our values are not being adhered to. We conclude this paper with recommendations for value-based strategies for improving the technologies.
Machine learning approach for vibronically renormalized electronic band structures
Aryal, Niraj, Zhang, Sheng, Yin, Weiguo, Chern, Gia-Wei
We present a machine learning (ML) method for efficient computation of vibrational thermal expectation values of physical properties from first principles. Our approach is based on the non-perturbative frozen phonon formulation in which stochastic Monte Carlo algorithm is employed to sample configurations of nuclei in a supercell at finite temperatures based on a first-principles phonon model. A deep-learning neural network is trained to accurately predict physical properties associated with sampled phonon configurations, thus bypassing the time-consuming {\em ab initio} calculations. To incorporate the point-group symmetry of the electronic system into the ML model, group-theoretical methods are used to develop a symmetry-invariant descriptor for phonon configurations in the supercell. We apply our ML approach to compute the temperature dependent electronic energy gap of silicon based on density functional theory (DFT). We show that, with less than a hundred DFT calculations for training the neural network model, an order of magnitude larger number of sampling can be achieved for the computation of the vibrational thermal expectation values. Our work highlights the promising potential of ML techniques for finite temperature first-principles electronic structure methods.
AI Literacy for All: Adjustable Interdisciplinary Socio-technical Curriculum
Tadimalla, Sri Yash, Maher, Mary Lou
This paper presents a curriculum, "AI Literacy for All," to promote an interdisciplinary understanding of AI, its socio-technical implications, and its practical applications for all levels of education. With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), there is a need for AI literacy that goes beyond the traditional AI education curriculum. AI literacy has been conceptualized in various ways, including public literacy, competency building for designers, conceptual understanding of AI concepts, and domain-specific upskilling. Most of these conceptualizations were established before the public release of Generative AI (Gen-AI) tools like ChatGPT. AI education has focused on the principles and applications of AI through a technical lens that emphasizes the mastery of AI principles, the mathematical foundations underlying these technologies, and the programming and mathematical skills necessary to implement AI solutions. In AI Literacy for All, we emphasize a balanced curriculum that includes technical and non-technical learning outcomes to enable a conceptual understanding and critical evaluation of AI technologies in an interdisciplinary socio-technical context. The paper presents four pillars of AI literacy: understanding the scope and technical dimensions of AI, learning how to interact with Gen-AI in an informed and responsible way, the socio-technical issues of ethical and responsible AI, and the social and future implications of AI. While it is important to include all learning outcomes for AI education in a Computer Science major, the learning outcomes can be adjusted for other learning contexts, including, non-CS majors, high school summer camps, the adult workforce, and the public. This paper advocates for a shift in AI literacy education to offer a more interdisciplinary socio-technical approach as a pathway to broaden participation in AI.
PoliPrompt: A High-Performance Cost-Effective LLM-Based Text Classification Framework for Political Science
Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have opened new avenues for enhancing text classification efficiency in political science, surpassing traditional machine learning methods that often require extensive feature engineering, human labeling, and task-specific training. However, their effectiveness in achieving high classification accuracy remains questionable. This paper introduces a three-stage in-context learning approach that leverages LLMs to improve classification accuracy while minimizing experimental costs. Our method incorporates automatic enhanced prompt generation, adaptive exemplar selection, and a consensus mechanism that resolves discrepancies between two weaker LLMs, refined by an advanced LLM. We validate our approach using datasets from the BBC news reports, Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation, and 2018 election campaign ads. The results show significant improvements in classification F1 score (+0.36 for zero-shot classification) with manageable economic costs (-78% compared with human labeling), demonstrating that our method effectively addresses the limitations of traditional machine learning while offering a scalable and reliable solution for text analysis in political science.
Improving Robustness of Spectrogram Classifiers with Neural Stochastic Differential Equations
Brogan, Joel, Kotevska, Olivera, Torres, Anibely, Jha, Sumit, Adams, Mark
ABSTRACT Signal analysis and classification is fraught with high levels of noise and perturbation. Computer-vision-based deep learning models applied to spectrograms have proven useful in the field of signal classification and detection; however, these methods aren't designed to handle the low signalto-noise Figure 1: Surface representations of the 2D Brownian surface ratios inherent within non-vision signal processing noise injected into our Neural SDE tasks. While they are powerful, they are currently not the method of choice in the inherently noisy and dynamic critical confidence of neural networks in their responses. Such confidence infrastructure domain, such as smart-grid sensing, anomaly metrics will enable human Subject Matter Experts to detection, and non-intrusive load monitoring. Currently, build a relationship of trust with robust neural networks that these models can be brittle, which makes them susceptible to have a history of credible and correctly calibrated responses.
An Investigation of Denial of Service Attacks on Autonomous Driving Software and Hardware in Operation
Stübler, Tillmann, Amodei, Andrea, Capriglione, Domenico, Tomasso, Giuseppe, Bonnotte, Nicolas, Mohammed, Shawan
This research investigates the impact of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, specifically Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) flood attacks, on Autonomous Driving (AD) systems, focusing on their control modules. Two experimental setups were created: the first involved an ICMP flood attack on a Raspberry Pi running an AD software stack, and the second examined the effects of single and double ICMP flood attacks on a Global Navigation Satellite System Real-Time Kinematic (GNSS-RTK) device for high-accuracy localization of an autonomous vehicle that is available on the market. The results indicate a moderate impact of DoS attacks on the AD stack, where the increase in median computation time was marginal, suggesting a degree of resilience to these types of attacks. In contrast, the GNSS device demonstrated significant vulnerability: during DoS attacks, the sample rate dropped drastically to approximately 50% and 5% of the nominal rate for single and double attacker configurations, respectively. Additionally, the longest observed time increments were in the range of seconds during the attacks. These results underscore the vulnerability of AD systems to DoS attacks and the critical need for robust cybersecurity measures. This work provides valuable insights into the design requirements of AD software stacks and highlights that external hardware and modules can be significant attack surfaces.
Long-Range Biometric Identification in Real World Scenarios: A Comprehensive Evaluation Framework Based on Missions
Aykac, Deniz, Brogan, Joel, Barber, Nell, Shivers, Ryan, Zhang, Bob, Sacca, Dallas, Tipton, Ryan, Jager, Gavin, Garret, Austin, Love, Matthew, Goddard, Jim, Cornett, David III, Bolme, David S.
The considerable body of data available for evaluating biometric recognition systems in Research and Development (R\&D) environments has contributed to the increasingly common problem of target performance mismatch. Biometric algorithms are frequently tested against data that may not reflect the real world applications they target. From a Testing and Evaluation (T\&E) standpoint, this domain mismatch causes difficulty assessing when improvements in State-of-the-Art (SOTA) research actually translate to improved applied outcomes. This problem can be addressed with thoughtful preparation of data and experimental methods to reflect specific use-cases and scenarios. To that end, this paper evaluates research solutions for identifying individuals at ranges and altitudes, which could support various application areas such as counterterrorism, protection of critical infrastructure facilities, military force protection, and border security. We address challenges including image quality issues and reliance on face recognition as the sole biometric modality. By fusing face and body features, we propose developing robust biometric systems for effective long-range identification from both the ground and steep pitch angles. Preliminary results show promising progress in whole-body recognition. This paper presents these early findings and discusses potential future directions for advancing long-range biometric identification systems based on mission-driven metrics.
Trustworthy and Responsible AI for Human-Centric Autonomous Decision-Making Systems
Dehghani, Farzaneh, Dibaji, Mahsa, Anzum, Fahim, Dey, Lily, Basdemir, Alican, Bayat, Sayeh, Boucher, Jean-Christophe, Drew, Steve, Eaton, Sarah Elaine, Frayne, Richard, Ginde, Gouri, Harris, Ashley, Ioannou, Yani, Lebel, Catherine, Lysack, John, Arzuaga, Leslie Salgado, Stanley, Emma, Souza, Roberto, Santos, Ronnie de Souza, Wells, Lana, Williamson, Tyler, Wilms, Matthias, Wahid, Zaman, Ungrin, Mark, Gavrilova, Marina, Bento, Mariana
Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents the frontier of computer science, enabling machines to emulate human intelligence and perform tasks that were once exclusive to human capabilities (Briganti and Le Moine 2020). This rapid progression in AI, driven by Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) innovations, has catalyzed breakthroughs across various industries, including business, communication, healthcare, and education, among others. Utilizing state-of-the-art computational resources, the AI models are trained on extensive datasets and can be used for decision-making on unseen data. Recent advancements in AI algorithms and feature engineering techniques have played a pivotal role in transforming various human-centric fields, notably, healthcare (Esteva et al 2019), image and text generation (Epstein et al 2023), biometrics and cybersecurity (Gavrilova et al 2022), online social media opinion mining (Anzum and Gavrilova 2023), autonomous driving vehicles (Ma et al 2020), and beyond. Despite the impressive capabilities exhibited by recent AI-based systems, a significant challenge lies in their inherent black box nature. Due to the lack of explainability and interpretability of AI models, establishing trust among end users has become critical (von Eschenbach 2021). Therefore, to ensure trustworthiness in AI-empowered systems, it is imperative not only to improve the model's accuracy but also to incorporate explainability and interpretability into the model's architecture and
Highly Accurate Real-space Electron Densities with Neural Networks
Cheng, Lixue, Szabó, P. Bernát, Schätzle, Zeno, Kooi, Derk, Köhler, Jonas, Giesbertz, Klaas J. H., Noé, Frank, Hermann, Jan, Gori-Giorgi, Paola, Foster, Adam
Variational ab-initio methods in quantum chemistry stand out among other methods in providing direct access to the wave function. This allows in principle straightforward extraction of any other observable of interest, besides the energy, but in practice this extraction is often technically difficult and computationally impractical. Here, we consider the electron density as a central observable in quantum chemistry and introduce a novel method to obtain accurate densities from real-space many-electron wave functions by representing the density with a neural network that captures known asymptotic properties and is trained from the wave function by score matching and noise-contrastive estimation. We use variational quantum Monte Carlo with deep-learning ans\"atze (deep QMC) to obtain highly accurate wave functions free of basis set errors, and from them, using our novel method, correspondingly accurate electron densities, which we demonstrate by calculating dipole moments, nuclear forces, contact densities, and other density-based properties.