AI Weekly: AI models illustrate the importance of continued social distancing

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on unabated in countries around the world, there's a shared desire among those forced to shelter in place to see the extent to which social distancing is slowing the disease's spread. It's understandable -- collateral damage from government-imposed business closures threatens to devastate entire industries. As of this week, 26 million Americans have filed for unemployment claims, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the International Monetary Fund predicts a global financial crisis rivaling the Great Depression. Fortunately, a preprint study published by researchers at the University of Texas, the Southwest Research Institute, and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio strongly implies that quarantining and physical distancing are having the intended effects. Using a hybrid AI system dubbed SIRNet and several epidemiological models, which were trained on smartphone location data along with population-weighted density and other data points from the startup Safe Graph, World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and elsewhere, the coauthors claim they managed to accurately predict the outcomes of various social distancing policies.