The hidden seismic symphony in earthquake signals

Few months go by without another devastating earthquake somewhere in the world reminding us how we all remain at the mercy of major seismic events that strike without warning. But a new branch of geophysics powered by machine learning is uncovering fresh insights into the earth's slipping faults that often trigger these catastrophic earthquakes. Machine learning, which often goes by the catchier moniker of artificial intelligence, has captured the public's imagination with its promises of fully autonomous cars and the approaching "singularity" when machines out-think people. The current state of the art, however, shows little signs of true intelligence, such as the ability to abstract the principles behind a given phenomenon. In image recognition, AI systems learn from rote memorization to identify objects and are, therefore, often fooled.