DeepMind’s AI predicts almost exactly when and where it’s going to rain

How games teach AI to learn for itself

The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology Better forecasts 09.30.21 Good morning! Today: DeepMind has created an AI system that can provide very precise forecasts of rain. Also, check out the latest episode of our podcast, also about AI—specifically the field's symbiotic relationship with games. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. DeepMind’s AI predicts almost exactly when and where it’s going to rain    A fresh challenge: Working with the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, DeepMind has developed a deep-learning tool called DGMR that can accurately predict the likelihood of rain in the next 90 minutes—one of weather forecasting’s toughest challenges. How they did it: The DeepMind team trained their AI on radar data, which tracks the formation and movement of clouds. They fed this data to a deep generative network which learned to generate fake radar snapshots that continued the sequence of actual measurements. The researchers then tested the approach on 56 weather forecasters in a blind comparison with existing tools. Experts judged DGMR’s forecasts to be the best 89% of the time. Why it matters: Forecasting rain is crucial for a lot of industries. But doing it well is hard. Figuring out how much water is in the sky, and when and where it’s going to fall, depends on a number of processes, such as changes in temperature, cloud formation, and wind. All these factors are complex enough by themselves, but they’re even more complex when taken together. The big picture: We can view this latest development as yet another example of DeepMind finally starting to tick off a bucket list of real-world science problems. Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven Podcast: How games teach AI to learn for itself From chess to Jeopardy to e-sports, AI is increasingly beating humans at their own games. But that was never the ultimate goal. In the latest episode of our award-winning podcast, In Machines We Trust, we dig into the symbiotic relationship between games and AI. We meet the big players in the space, and we take a trip to an arcade. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen regularly. We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + Art is whatever you can get away with, so kudos to this Dutch artist who took $84,000 from a museum for two pieces of work, kept the money and claimed that itself was the art. He called it "Take the Money and Run." (WP $)   + If you're enjoying Squid Game on Netflix, you might have wondered how you make those Korean candies. TikTok is here to help!   + Big fan of the Bodega Cats Twitter account.    + To clarify, this is the etiquette when it comes to cats and Zoom calls.    + Thank you Lindsay for flagging this beautiful Phoebe Bridgers cover of That Funny Feeling by Bo Burnham (if you haven't watched his Netflix show Inside yet, you must.)    + Some ammonites were seriously massive.    + This New Yorker cartoon on the situation in the UK made me laugh (slightly bitterly.)   + Aside from the fact that, uh, it's the best TV show ever made, here's why The Sopranos is seeing a resurgence. (NYT $) The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Some people are feeling nostalgic for the start of the pandemic March 2020. Simpler times. Still zero desire to return to them personally. (The Atlantic $)   + America's pandemic is now an outlier in the rich world. (The Economist $)   + The US may actually emerge from this pandemic less, not more, prepared for the next one. (The Atlantic $)   + New covid cases in the US fell by 25% over the last two weeks. (Axios)   + Vaccine mandates are working. (Slate)   + Australia has reported its biggest jump in covid cases yet. (Gizmodo)  2 Facebook's latest tactic? Criticizing its own research  Its attempts to explain away negative findings on teen mental health are leading to some fairly uncomfortable contortions. (NYT $)   3 YouTube says it's banning anti-vaccine misinformation A mere… nine months since the vaccine rollout began. (WSJ $)   + This isn't the first time that YouTube has been late to the party. (Slate)  4 Why China's pledge to stop selling coal abroad won't change much The emissions savings pale in comparison to those produced by its domestic coal use. (Nature)   + The country is in the midst of an energy crisis. (The Guardian)   + The US has just declared 22 species extinct. (The Guardian)  5 How Big Tech ended up monopolizing your home 🏠 This is a major issue with smart home tech: buying into it requires you to pick a company and buy only their products. (WP $)   + A cheat sheet for all the antitrust cases against Big Tech. (Quartz)  6 Google is trying to improve search It's all about context. (The Verge)   7 AI isn't going to replace programmers any time soon Though it might help them to be better at their jobs. (IEEE Spectrum)   + But it might help to finish unfinished symphonies. (The Conversation)   8 Why VR may never hit the big time  Even its biggest fans say they get bored of it. (NYT $)   9 Burning Man's secret Sci-Fi origins Its founders were inspired by Dune, Mad Max, and even Lawrence of Arabia (Wired $)   10 Panic buying is more rational than you think  Though it's obviously deeply unhelpful on a large scale. (Wired UK) Lead a cyber-resilient organization. Join us at CyberSecure, our premier cybersecurity conference, to get the essentials you need to defend yourself against the global threat of cyber attacks. Register now. Quote of the day "COVID has killed our better angels." —Dawn Comstock, executive director of Jefferson County Public Health, says healthcare workers are increasingly having to grapple with violent covid deniers. Top image credit: Getty Please send Korean candy to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up today Build your strategic defense again cybercriminals Join us virtually | November 16-17, 2021 Register now Want to change how you receive these emails? You can *update your preferences or *unsubscribe from this list.  Subscription Information This message was sent to  Webmaster220 Bible Study Blog *the blog owner has deleted the hyperlink intentionally Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142