Latest news with #computerScience
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Engineering Leaders on How AI Will Change Talent
Aparna Chennapragada, Chief Product Officer of Experiences and Devices at Microsoft, Osi Imeokparia, CEO of Kode With Klossy and Amjad Masad, Founder & CEO of Replit join Bloomberg's Emily Chang to explore how AI is reshaping computer science education and what that means for the future of engineering roles and hiring at Bloomberg Tech in San Francisco. (Source: Bloomberg)
Geek Wire
3 days ago
- Health
- Geek Wire
‘Extremely rare': UW PhD computer science grads recognized with prestigious dissertation honors
University of Washington computer science PhD graduates Ashish Sharma, left and Sewon Min. (Photos via UW) Two PhD graduates from the University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering have had their dissertations recognized with prestigious Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Doctoral Dissertation Awards. The honors went to award winner Ashish Sharma, now a senior applied scientist at Microsoft, and honorable mention recipient Sewon Min, a research scientist at Seattle's Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and incoming faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. Both students, working on advances in artificial intelligence, earned their doctoral degrees in 2024. 'This is an extremely rare situation,' Allen School Director Magdalena Balazinska told GeekWire. 'For a university to have one of their students win this award is a once-in-a-decade type of event. Having two students recognized in the same year is truly outstanding. And both are AI-related, so very timely.' ACM's yearly awards recognize the best PhD dissertations in computer science. Longtime UW professor Ed Lazowska said there is usually a winner and one or two honorable mentions, and that in the U.S. alone there are more than 2,000 computer science PhD dissertations annually. 'We've had winners three times in the past, and honorable mentions four times,' Lazowska said. 'That's a superb record. But to have two in one year — the winner and one of two honorable mentions — is unprecedented. And both are in AI/ML/NLP, showing our leadership in that area.' For his dissertation titled 'Human-AI Collaboration to Support Mental Health and Well-Being,' Sharma devised ways to address a fundamental challenge in health care by leveraging AI to make high-quality mental health support available to more people. 'Augmenting mental health interventions with AI and NLP-based methods has the potential to provide scaffolding that could make quality mental health care accessible to all,' Sharma said in an Allen School blog post. 'By carefully designing human-AI collaboration that is grounded in psychology expertise to truly understand the complexities of mental health, human behavior and user needs, and is rigorously tested for safety and effectiveness, we can empower both those seeking help and those providing it.' Sharma worked with professor Tim Althoff in the Allen School's Behavioral Data Science Group. He previously received one of two William Chan Memorial Dissertation Awards, recognizing dissertations of exceptional merit, as well as a JP Morgan AI Ph.D. Fellowship. In her dissertation titled 'Rethinking Data Use in Large Language Models,' Min addressed fundamental challenges in natural language processing by developing a new class of language models and alternative approaches for how such models are trained. 'My research established the foundations of nonparametric models, and also opened up new avenues for responsible data use, such as enabling data opt-out and credit assignment to data creators,' said Min, who worked in the UW NLP Group with professors Hanna Hajishirzi (a senior director at Ai2) and Luke Zettlemoyer (a research director at Meta). Prior to the ACM honor, Min also earned a William Chan Memorial Dissertation Award from the Allen School, as well as the 2024 Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) ProQuest Innovation in Technology Award, which recognizes research that introduces innovative technology as a creative solution to a major problem. During her time at the Allen School, Min received a JP Morgan Ph.D. Fellowship in AI and was also named a 2022 EECS Rising Star. The other ACM honorable mention award went to Alexander (Zander) Kelley for his dissertation 'Explicit Pseudorandom Distributions for Restricted Models of Computation' toward a PhD earned at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
CNA
5 days ago
- Politics
- CNA
To stay or to go? Chinese students in the US mull future amid Trump's visa crackdown
SINGAPORE: Like many of his peers from China who have been grappling with increasing pressure and uncertainty in recent weeks over their studies in the United States, Christopher has found himself in limbo. Speaking to CNA under a pseudonym due to an ongoing clampdown on foreign students, especially those from China at US universities, the 23-year-old international student from Hangzhou shared his account of studying at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he has been pursuing his master's in computer science. 'The US is undeniably the world leader in this industry,' said Christopher, adding that American computer science programmes were 'among the best'. Currently home in China on a three-month summer internship with tech giant Alibaba, he is slated to return to the US for the new school semester beginning in September. 'It's extremely absurd that the US government has taken the most extreme step backwards,' Christopher said. 'Their actions have betrayed everyone who had high hopes and expectations for the country.' EDUCATION CRACKDOWN According to official data, nearly 280,000 students from China made up a quarter of all international enrollments in the US last year. But rising anti-China rhetoric and the looming threat of Trump's sudden policy shifts have reportedly prompted many students and their families to rethink their higher education plans in the US. The situation escalated to new highs in May, unfolding against the backdrop of rapidly deteriorating Sino-US relations when the Trump administration moved to block Harvard University from enrolling international students and issued new measures targeting Chinese nationals - who made up a fifth of its foreign student intake in 2024. Beijing has condemned the recent actions, saying it had lodged protests with Washington and 'consistently opposed the politicisation of educational cooperation'. 'The US has unreasonably cancelled Chinese students' visas under the pretext of ideology and national rights,' foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a routine press briefing on Friday (May 30), adding that it had also urged the US to be more constructive towards stable bilateral relations. That same day, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed the immediate start of 'additional vetting of any non-immigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose'. The top US diplomat earlier said that Washington would start revoking the visas of Chinese students with links to the ruling Communist Party and those who are studying in critical areas. The Trump administration has also ordered its missions worldwide to stop scheduling new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants. "SUPER DISRUPTIVE" Chinese international students are continuing to voice fears and uncertainties over their dreams of enrolling into top US universities following recent actions by President Donald Trump. Many on social media said they had been reconsidering studying in the US and were looking at alternative plans instead. 'Policies are changing every day,' wrote a user named Bo Lo on Xiaohongshu, who shared that he had been 'back in China for two weeks and feeling really anxious'. 'Should I go back? I'm still undecided on whether to buy a plane ticket to return to the US immediately,' he said, without giving any details on where he is studying in the US. A Chinese postgraduate student from Beijing who spoke to Reuters said she would defer enrollment for a year if the visa appointment system is not resumed. "We feel helpless and unable to do anything," said the 24-year-old sociology student, who was identified as Lainey but declined to give her surname for privacy reasons. "The situation in North America this year is not very good. From applying for my PhD until now, this series of visa policies is not very favourable to us. But we have no choice but to wait." Global education industry experts like David Weeks, co-founder of Beijing-based international student consultancy Sunrise International, have echoed ongoing concerns from Chinese parents following ongoing developments. 'Their kids got into Harvard and were about to start this amazing journey but now they are being told they may have to transfer overnight,' Weeks told CNA. 'It's super disruptive and disturbing for the families particularly because of the nature of the indictment against Harvard,' he said. AMERICA'S LOSS, OTHERS' GAIN? As the Trump administration makes moves to block foreign student enrollments, rival institutions like prestigious universities in Australia, the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong are moving in, experts noted, and have been 'benefiting a lot' in the past year. Hong Kong, with five universities ranked in the top 100 of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, said it was seeking to attract top talent following the Harvard ban on enrolling foreign students. Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology (HKUST) announced an open invitation on May 23 to international undergraduate and postgraduate students at Harvard University, as well as those holding confirmed offers to continue their studies at HKUST. 'We will continue to keep a close eye on the needs of students whose studies have been affected by the shifting global education landscape,' said Hong Kong's Education Bureau, adding that it would consider support measures as part of the city's role as an 'international education hub'. China's Xi'an Jiaotong University has appealed for students at Harvard, promising 'streamlined admissions and comprehensive support'. Osaka University, one of the top-ranked universities in Japan, has offered tuition fee waivers, research grants and help with travel arrangements for students and researchers who wished to transfer from US institutions. Kyoto University and Tokyo University also said they were considering similar schemes. Weeks told CNA that rival universities like Cambridge and Oxford 'had already benefited from a lot of America's skepticism in the last year'. The total number of Chinese students enrolled in US Ivy League universities, as well as other top schools, would add up to losses of up to tens of thousands of students, Weeks said. But even with good intentions, rival top universities outside the US may not have the capacity to take in students from Harvard and other schools who wished to transfer, Weeks said, adding that many Chinese students would also not want to leave Harvard or abandon offers because it was still a top school. 'International students who go to Harvard are some of the best and brightest in the world,' Weeks said. 'These are not students who are willing to accept a university outside of the top five, or even in the group of eight in Australia, outside of the top two or three in Ireland or New Zealand, at least over the Russell Group (universities) in the UK.' International students, more likely to pay full tuition fees, also remain a lucrative source of income for universities, experts said, also noting that the Trump administration was hitting a major source of revenue for hundreds of schools across the US. Data released by the Association of International Educators (NAFSA) revealed that more than 1.1 million international students studying in the US in 2024 contributed nearly US$44 billion to the US economy during the academic year. On the Sina Weibo microblogging site, one Chinese student shared her rough experience over the past week, saying she still remained optimistic about her future and might choose to look to schools in the UK or Singapore instead. 'Everything will be okay, all things considered,' said the Weibo user who went by the name Fan Chang, adding that international students like her from China had 'plenty to offer'. 'We have skills in (fields like) language, mathematics, engineering and sciences so it's really (America's) loss. There are many other great universities in other countries that would readily welcome our talents instead,' she said. Similarly, Beijing student Lainey told Reuters she was mulling other options elsewhere. "Although everyone says the US admissions system may be biased against Chinese students, in reality, US schools are indeed the top in terms of academic quality," she said. "I may also consider (applying to) some places outside the US, such as Europe, as well as Hong Kong and Singapore." But in Christopher's case, he ultimately plans to stay on to obtain his master's degree even despite ongoing developments. The recent actions of the Trump administration have, however, also served as an important reminder - 'that (the US) is not as great as it promotes itself to be'. 'As I learnt during my six years studying here, this land does not belong to me, and I will always be a foreigner.'
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
What Bitcoin Users Need To Know About Formal Verification
Bitcoin and Math Formal verification is one of the more theoretical areas of computer science. It relies on the tools of mathematical logic to verify whether statements are correct. This field historically has been obscure, but recent advances in AI may bring it front and center. I spoke with Clark Barrett, a professor of computer science at Stanford, who tells of a software bug that once led to the explosion of a rocket. The software ran an instance that forced it to convert a floating-point number into an integer. This caused the program to crash and the rocket to explode. A formal verification of the code would have avoided that problem. Compiling is the weakest form of verification. A stronger form would be to run a battery of test cases. To see this more clearly, consider a function that divides two numbers. Without doing any internal checks, that function could run on any numerical inputs. If your test cases excluded 0, your function would still compile. But the edge case of a 0 in the denominator would cause the program to crash. Only a formal verification would catch this because it's not sufficient just to evaluate the functions on the different inputs, but rather to assess the function on its underlying logic. The bar for formal verification is high, and the tools are obscure and hard to use. Outside of the Mars rover, they have not had wide acceptance. But the one possible exception today is cloud services. Cloud providers allow customers to enter their own query logic when using their services. An error in the query logic, such as inadvertently typing 'or,' instead of 'and' can have existential consequences, giving everyone access instead of no one. As such, companies like AWS are now recruiting computer scientists in formal verification by the hundreds. The big use case will be formally verifying code written by AI. As AI tools improve, more code will be written by AI, and we need fast and cheap ways to verify this code beyond simply compiling it. That's where formal verification could have its Super Bowl moment. There is now a big research effort underway to deploy these formal verification tools at scale to AI-generated code. This could have an enormous impact, making software bugs a thing of the past. Not only would software be written faster with AI, but it would be better too. Once these formal verification tools arrive, I'm eager to see how Bitcoin would fare. But the early answer here is that Bitcoin should fare well because it uses several strict forms of logic that give it its high security. For example, full nodes of the network check signatures (through SigOps) when verifying transactions. If the signature fails, the transaction will never enter the mempool, nor be included in a block. Similarly, miners win a block only if their hash of the block header lies below the difficulty target. And a transaction is valid only if the inputs exceeds its outputs. In other words, the logic in Bitcoin is fully deterministic. There is no uncertainty about the rules of the protocol. And because of this, there is little room for software bugs, evidenced by the lack of hacks over the last 15 years. That said, Bitcoin is still an example of social computing. You could say that it is technically vulnerable to collusion if, for example, every single miner in the world agreed to fork the chain. That could happen in theory. But that's where economics comes in: It would not be in the miner's interest to do so.
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Formal Verification And Bitcoin
Bitcoin and Math ChatGPT Formal verification is one of the more theoretical areas of computer science. It relies on the tools of mathematical logic to verify whether statements are correct. This field historically has been obscure, but recent advances in AI may bring it front and center. I spoke with Clark Barrett, a professor of computer science at Stanford, who tells of a software bug that once led to the explosion of a rocket. The software ran an instance that forced it to convert a floating-point number into an integer. This caused the program to crash and the rocket to explode. A formal verification of the code would have avoided that problem. Compiling is the weakest form of verification. A stronger form would be to run a battery of test cases. To see this more clearly, consider a function that divides two numbers. Without doing any internal checks, that function could run on any numerical inputs. If your test cases excluded 0, your function would still compile. But the edge case of a 0 in the denominator would cause the program to crash. Only a formal verification would catch this because it's not sufficient just to evaluate the functions on the different inputs, but rather to assess the function on its underlying logic. The bar for formal verification is high, and the tools are obscure and hard to use. Outside of the Mars rover, they have not had wide acceptance. But the one possible exception today is cloud services. Cloud providers allow customers to enter their own query logic when using their services. An error in the query logic, such as inadvertently typing 'or,' instead of 'and' can have existential consequences, giving everyone access instead of no one. As such, companies like AWS are now recruiting computer scientists in formal verification by the hundreds. The big use case will be formally verifying code written by AI. As AI tools improve, more code will be written by AI, and we need fast and cheap ways to verify this code beyond simply compiling it. That's where formal verification could have its Super Bowl moment. There is now a big research effort underway to deploy these formal verification tools at scale to AI-generated code. This could have an enormous impact, making software bugs a thing of the past. Not only would software be written faster with AI, but it would be better too. Once these formal verification tools arrive, I'm eager to see how Bitcoin would fare. But the early answer here is that Bitcoin should fare well because it uses several strict forms of logic that give it its high security. For example, full nodes of the network check signatures (through SigOps) when verifying transactions. If the signature fails, the transaction will never enter the mempool, nor be included in a block. Similarly, miners win a block only if their hash of the block header lies below the difficulty target. And a transaction is valid only if the inputs exceeds its outputs. In other words, the logic in Bitcoin is fully deterministic. There is no uncertainty about the rules of the protocol. And because of this, there is little room for software bugs, evidenced by the lack of hacks over the last 15 years. That said, Bitcoin is still an example of social computing. You could say that it is technically vulnerable to collusion if, for example, every single miner in the world agreed to fork the chain. That could happen in theory. But that's where economics comes in: It would not be in the miner's interest to do so.
