Show Notes
Hosts: Jeff Cunningham and Ryan Harris
Guests:
Dr. Amy McGovern, Professor at University of Oklahoma Director, NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography & Senior Technical Staff Member
Dr. John Williams, Head of Weather AI Sciences at The Weather Company, an IBM Business
Description: Is Machine Learning coming for your job? Will AI replace weather forecasters? Unlikely in the near-term postulates our guests this month, Dr. Amy McGovern, who runs the National Science Foundation’s AI for Environmental Sciences (AI2ES) and Dr. John Williams, Head of Weather AI Sciences at The Weather Company, an IBM Business. But it should accelerate decision making and generally make our jobs easier by tipping and cueing forecasters. Amy and John speak of model hallucinations like the inaccuracies we see with ChatGPT, but both experts also marvel at the rapid inflection point we are in the midst of. Learn what AI and Machine Learning do well for weather and climate prediction, where it’s lacking, and the promise of freeing forecasters and practitioners up to focus more on risk communication and individual-tailored predictions to better help society in the future. It’s a fascinating episode you won’t want to miss.
References:
- AI2ES
- Could AI become the world’s weatherman? (Fox News)
- AI is going to revolutionize the weather forecast (FreeThink)
- El Nino could make coffee, cookies, and chocolate more expensive (Time Magazine)
- El Nino rains intensify dengue outbreak in Peru (Reuters)
- Understanding El Nino (NOAA)
- Severe weather and heat turn out the lights in Oklahoma (The Oklahoman)
- IBM's The Weather Company Continues to Be the World's Most Accurate Forecaster Overall, Despite Growing Competition and Amid Weather's Increased Impact (IBM)
- Google's AI-enabled flood forecasting goes global (Axios)
Human-Machine Teaming
(01:26)
The Social Science of AI in Weather and Climate
(07:48)
The Mechanics of Machine Learning
(10:27)
Generative AI
(12:43)
Advice for Students
(24:14)
New Types of AI Related Jobs
(25:24)
Prediction for 2030
(28:20)
Member discussion: