Recent advances in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) techniques have shown great potential for enhancing the modeling and characterization of materials science issues. AI/ML techniques revolutionize big data analytics through signals and imaging detection, segmentation, and characterization; data fusion processes of association, estimation, and prediction, and modeling of deformation, structural, and materials awareness. Unfortunately, the dominance of AI/ML applications may hinder fundamental understanding of driving parameters in complicated material properties, including the impact of local chemistry and energy influences on nucleation, phase evolution, and bonding. As mathematical complexities are modeled using AI/ML approaches the interaction of driving mechanisms and underlying physics-based and first-principles understanding is often omitted in the final modeling of material behavior. However, microscopy and advanced characterization techniques may help clarify the underlying physics by providing critical validation for mathematical assumptions used in AI/ML models and determining model inter-parameter relationships. Sensing-based characterization is critical for operations using deep learning and/or clustered neural networks where complex interactions between microstructural features strongly impact each other, and driving mechanisms that control material response. The paper addresses several considerations for applying machine learning techniques to fundamental material problems, and the role for parameter validation through characterization. The future of AI/ML materials awareness includes procedural potential applications, advanced analytical tools, and coordinated research discovery thrusts.
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