Artificial Intelligence in Mechanical Engineering: Foundations, Opportunities, Challenges, and Responsibilities

4 horas 22 minutos ago
arXiv:2610.33105v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping mechanical engineering (ME), from modeling, simulation, and optimization to diagnostics, design, and technical communication. Drawing on a round-table at the 28th ABCM International Congress on Mechanical Engineering (COBEM 2025), this article presents a structured perspective for the Brazilian and international ME communities. Rather than an exhaustive survey, it examines how AI can enhance engineering practice without compromising scientific rigor. We distinguish statistical learning from human cognition and discuss the capabilities, limitations, and emerging agentic forms of AI. We then consider industrial adoption, workforce changes, and AI-assisted scientific discovery, alongside the energy and infrastructure demands of AI computation and their implications for sustainability and thermal management. The discussion emphasizes the integration of physical knowledge, structured reasoning, and domain expertise into AI systems, particularly in safety-relevant applications. Topics include physics-informed and hybrid learning, physically constrained modeling, validation, uncertainty quantification, and certification. We also examine educational, epistemological, and ethical challenges, including curriculum reform, human-agent collaboration, professional accountability, and the preservation of engineering knowledge. We conclude with principles for responsible AI adoption in ME: physical consistency, rigorous validation, explicit treatment of uncertainty, energy sustainability, human oversight, and ethical responsibility. AI should complement, not replace, engineering judgment.
A. Cunha Jr, C. Nataraj, L. M. Lorenzo, H. Panetto, A. Scotti, J. V. C. Vargas

Prospect Theory in Large Language Models: A Meta-Analysis of Loss Aversion, Diminishing Sensitivity, and Probability Weighting

4 horas 22 minutos ago
arXiv:2610.33103v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Prospect theory splits risky choice into three parts: loss aversion, measured by the relative weight of losses to gains, $\lambda$ (e.g., $\lambda = 2$ implies that losses weigh twice as much as gains), diminishing sensitivity to the size of outcomes (i.e., the curvature and linearity of the value function), and the nonlinear weighting of probabilities. I examined whether Large Language Models (LLMs) display the same properties as people by meta-analyzing 102 fitted estimates from 11 studies covering 32 language models. The three components emerge differently. Loss aversion is modest: the pooled $\lambda$ is 1.26 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.46), far below the strongest human meta-analytic estimate ($\lambda = 1.96$) and compatible with more conservative ones (1.07 and 1.31). Matched by design, LLMs are compatible with people when gains and losses are symmetric ($\lambda = 1.15$ against 1.07), but well below them when losses are smaller than gains (1.46 against 2.3), where human loss aversion is strongest. Value functions are close to linear rather than concave under the Tversky-Kahneman method (1.01, against a human value of 0.67), but more concave than in people under the Tanaka method (0.52, against 0.67), so diminishing sensitivity depends on how it is measured. Probability weighting shows a human-like inverse S shape ($\gamma = 0.81$ under Tversky-Kahneman and 0.84 under the Tanaka method), though on few studies. In sum, LLMs show little loss aversion and little diminishing sensitivity, but retain human-like probability distortion, yet these generalizations shift when looking at specific model families and fitting methods.
Adi Tarabeih

IRON-Meme: A Benchmark for Structured Understanding of Identities and Roles in Online Meme Narratives

4 horas 22 minutos ago
arXiv:2610.33097v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: As polarization grows on social media, understanding how political memes shape online narratives has become increasingly important. Previous research has relied on either qualitative frameworks that are hard to scale or computational methods that lack theoretical grounding. Both approaches treat narrative categories in isolation and focus exclusively on moral portrayals of identity. To address these limitations, we introduce a framework grounded in social science theories, encompassing three categories: social identities (such as gender, politics, and ethnicity), viewpoints (ingroup and outgroup perspectives), and narrative roles (moral character, intelligence, status, and power). Building on this framework, we present IRON-Meme, a human-annotated benchmark comprising 1,110 political memes across substantially more templates than existing benchmarks. Our analysis of IRON-Meme shows that most memes assign derogatory roles and that identities, roles, and templates are systematically interconnected. Evaluation of nine vision-language models indicates that frontier-scale and reasoning models achieve the highest performance, while accuracy on social identities and narrative roles decreases for less frequent labels. Incorporating template background knowledge does not enhance narrative role classification, suggesting that meme interpretation relies on how memes are adapted for specific communicative purposes. We make IRON-Meme and our code publicly available.
Gabriella Bollici, Stefano De Giorgis, Wouter Van Atteveldt, Filip Ilievski

Inverse Modeling for Laser Pulse Shape Design in Inertial Confinement Fusion

4 horas 22 minutos ago
arXiv:2610.33096v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The achievement of practical fusion energy remains one of the most pressing unsolved scientific challenges, with immense implications for carbon-free power. A critical factor in the success of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) is the design of a Laser Pulse Shape (LP) that can optimally drive implosions under stringent physical constraints. Traditional LP design relies on computationally expensive simulations and manual iterative refinement. We introduce the ICF Laser Pulse Shape Design System (LPDS), a generative inverse modeling framework that maps desired outcomes and target pellet configurations directly to optimized LPs. Crucially, we design a multi-objective loss function to ensure the generated LPs satisfy fundamental physical constraints and experimental requirements. Furthermore, we present constraint-conditioning, inpainting, and gradient-based LP editing mechanisms for fine-grained control over specific pulse characteristics during generation. Moreover, we study the transfer of our framework to a limited set of real experimental shots. Our method establishes a data-driven inverse design framework for LP design in ICF, contributing to the advancement of practical and sustainable fusion energy.
Ricardo Luna Gutierrez, Vineet Gundecha, Rahman Ejaz, Varchas Gopalaswamy, Riccardo Betti, Sahand Ghorbanpour, Aarne Lees, Soumyendu Sarkar