The emergence of generative AI is revolutionizing how we do things. As the technology gains broad adoption across the world, we're seeing more people integrate it into their workflows to make work easier by automating redundant and repetitive tasks, creating more time to focus on more important tasks.
There seems to be a new feature, app, or model popping up ever so often, leveraging AI tech to make tasks that were once viewed as "impossible" to instead become "achievable". Microsoft's latest AI model, Aurora, falls under this category (via The New York Times).
According to a research paper published in Nature, the model is designed to help provide detailed and accurate weather forecasts. As you know, weather forecasts are used to help make informed decisions, especially about safety, thus making it easy to avoid calamities.
However, weather forecasters aren't always on point, as their predictions might be a bit off target, which can be a huge inconvenience at times. Interestingly, Microsoft's Aurora AI model promises accurate 10-day forecasts at smaller scales than other models.
The model is already running in Europe's largest weather centers alongside other traditional models that conventionally take hours to provide a forecast, while Microsoft's AI model can generate accurate results in a matter of seconds.
Interestingly, the model's functionality isn't tied to weather forecasting alone. It can also handle any Earth system with data available, which means it can be trained to forecast other important elements in the environment, including air pollution, cyclones, and more.
According to Paris Perdikaris, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who led the development of Aurora at Microsoft:
“I’m most excited to see the adoption of this model as a blueprint that can add more Earth systems to the prediction pipeline.”
Microsoft's new AI model promises efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness compared to traditional models, which are extremely complex and expensive to run. Additionally, they take a long time to develop, making them difficult to update. Ultimately, these factors stunt the weather forecasting process.
However, not everyone is convinced by the cutting-edge technology being integrated into the weather forecasting arena for accurate results. Amy McGovern, a computer scientist at the University of Oklahoma, indicated:
“It doesn’t know the laws of physics, so it could make up something completely crazy.”
It's worth noting that McGovern wasn't involved in the study, and her comments are based on the report published and her own expertise in the field. Like most technological advances, it's mostly trial and error at launch, while continuously making improvements to enhance the tool's efficiency.
Microsoft's Aurora shows great promise, and it'll be interesting to see how everything pans out. However, it also raises concerns about job security for meteorologists in a future where AI models could perform their jobs more efficiently.
