> the AI algorithm correctly predicted 70% of earthquakes a week before they happened during a seven-month trial in China.
Very very impressive. The impact of this is enormous.
Very very impressive. The impact of this is enormous.
> The outcome was a weekly forecast in which the AI successfully predicted 14 earthquakes within about 200 miles of where it estimated they would happen and at almost exactly the calculated strength. It missed one earthquake and gave eight false warnings.
So 14 true positives and 8 false positives, which means the positive predictive value is not great, less than 65%. And I didn't read the paper for the details of the timing, but the article said "a week out", so I'm assuming it means the predictions meant the earthquake could strike in a minute or in 7 days.
What would governments/policy makers actually be able to do with any of this data? Not to denigrate it as a step forward, but I'm having trouble seeing much practical impact at all.
And even if you trusted the warning, would you leave immediately? Considering that the warning was for the next week, ie the quake could come next minute or in six days.
The less frequent earthquakes are the more valuable it would be.
The more risk to your life or property earthquake would have if unprepared would also increase the value.
So it's low value if there's mild earthquakes every week, but really high value if there's few strong earthquakes a year.
You can look at how beneficial hurricane forecasting has been in saving lives, which has been increasing in accuracy for longer lead times. It's very useful to know something bad is likely going to happen somewhere so you can move resources and evacuate people.
> So 14 true positives and 8 false positives, which means the positive predictive value is not great, less than 65%.
This actually seems huge to me unless we already are hitting close to 65%. I'm not sure how this wouldn't be a big deal compared to what I understand the status quo to be (unpredictable).
Of course, if the forecasts are just a couple minutes out at best, then that's way less useful. But at the very least an emergency alert could be sent out so people can get to safety which could help.
And, no, you very much do not want to be on the coast (look up storm surge) or anywhere watching a hurricane arrive.
I also mentioned it because the point is that it's clear evidence that forecasts can save lives and are therefore useful.
My point, unless it's something like 90-95% accurate, I don't think it's useful at all. Mostly a distraction. When you live in a seismically active area, you just need to be prepared all the time.
I took the megaquake warning as me realizing that I need to have at least 3 days of water stockpiled. I had 0. I don't really want to be a burden upon my neighbors in case of an earthquake, so it made sense just to store some water.
You know there is a very high chance this megaquake will happen in the next 30 years, why don't you have water stockpiled all the time?
Because it's not an accurate enough prediction.