Harvard working with Google on AI to predict earthquake aftershocks

Nepalese police and army personnel inspect damage to houses in the aftermath of the powerful earthquake in Sankhu on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal, on May 21, 2015. Researchers at Harvard University with an assist from Google said they developed an artificial intelligence system capable of forecasting aftershocks from earthquakes. The team used algorithms to analyze a database of earthquakes worldwide to predict where aftershocks might happen. Results showed the AI offered a significantly better system for predicting where an aftershock might happen. "Aftershock forecasting in particular is a challenge that's well-suited to machine learning because there are so many physical phenomena that could influence aftershock behavior and machine learning is extremely good at teasing out those relationships," said Phoebe DeVries, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University and co-author on the study, in a statement.