Google Introduces A.I. Agent That Aces 15-Day Weather Forecasts

[Randy Jennings]

From NY Times: Ilan Price, the new paper’s lead author and a senior research scientist at DeepMind, described the new A.I. agent, which the team calls GenCast, as much faster than traditional methods. “And it’s more accurate,” he added.

He and his colleagues found that GenCast ran circles around DeepMind’s previous A.I. weather program, which debuted in late 2023 with reliable 10-day forecasts. Rémi Lam, the lead scientist on that project and one of a dozen co-authors on the new paper, described the company’s weather team as having made surprisingly fast progress.

“I’m a little bit reluctant to say it, but it’s like we’ve made decades worth of improvements in one year,” he said in an interview. “We’re seeing really, really rapid progress.”

Full article: Google Introduces A.I. Agent That Aces 15-Day Weather Forecasts

 

[Jamie H]

Interesting! I noticed that it performed best in the 3-5 day range, rather than 10-15 days, but combining this with the ECMWFs own machine learning could be a real boost for accuracy, across the globe.

 

[James K]

Interesting.
I just read the times article for now, but downloaded the full report .pdf on nature for reading later..

 

[AmboyRoy]

I don't trust any of that AI stuff with anything....sure, it might be ok for some things, but weather forecasts? Nope...I'll pass.

 

[Jeff Duda]

"Aces" is a strong word. It is competitive with ECMWF forecasts, but that's it. It does not clearly exceed them at a level we have never seen before.

The synoptic scale predictability horizon has not been exceeded.

 

[Jamie H]

I don't trust any of that AI stuff with anything....sure, it might be ok for some things, but weather forecasts? Nope...I'll pass.

In this instance it's not 'AI' as much as machine learning. It's just using AI capabilities to compare weather patterns with previous systems to predict a likely outcome. If it continues to outperform current models on short term forecasts then it's a benefit for everyone.

 

[AmboyRoy]

In this instance it's not 'AI' as much as machine learning. It's just using AI capabilities to compare weather patterns with previous systems to predict a likely outcome. If it continues to outperform current models on short term forecasts then it's a benefit for everyone.

Kinda reminds me of the time when AccuWeather claimed they could forecast 6 months out...still don't trust it.