The pandemic that has raged across the globe over the past year has shone a cold, hard light on many things--the varied levels of preparedness to respond; collective attitudes toward health, technology, and science; and vast financial and social inequities. As the world continues to navigate the covid-19 health crisis, and some places even begin a gradual return to work, school, travel, and recreation, it's critical to resolve the competing priorities of protecting the public's health equitably while ensuring privacy. The extended crisis has led to rapid change in work and social behavior, as well as an increased reliance on technology. The expanded and rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) demonstrates how adaptive technologies are prone to intersect with humans and social institutions in potentially risky or inequitable ways. "Our relationship with technology as a whole will have shifted dramatically post-pandemic," says Yoav Schlesinger, principal of the ethical AI practice at Salesforce.

It could be argued that scientists create superpowers in their labs. If Aram Galstyan, director of the Artificial Intelligence Division at the USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI) had to pick just one superpower, it would be the ability to predict the future. What will be the daily closing price of Japan's Nikkei 225 index at the end of next week? How many 6.0 or stronger earthquakes will occur worldwide next month? Galstyan and a team of researchers at USC ISI are building a system to answer such questions.

Researchers from the University of Southern California's (USC) Viterbi Information Sciences Institute (ISI) are working hard on being able to predict the future. Imagine knowing when an earthquake was going to hit a region a month in advance? Or what the daily closing price of the Nikkei would be at the end of the week? Life would be a very different place, and that's exactly what the USC team has been working on by combining Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human predicting. Aram Galstyan and his team at USC ISI have been working on the Synergistic Anticipation of Geopolitical Events (SAGE) project for two years, in a way to predict the future without needing any experts.