What technology has enabled us to do in the last few decades, is probably beyond anything anyone could have ever imagined. We are truly living in a world that could only have been a sci-fi concept once.

But can future technological innovations help us prepare for some of the worst natural disasters that occur from time to time and claim hundreds of thousands of lives?

This is a really big challenge as it would literally be like being able to see the future and be prepared for mother nature's wrath. Right now, it seems pretty impossible, but could it be that one day it can actually become a reality?

Recently in a New York Times article, I read that by using AI, scientists would be able to better forecast earthquake aftershocks, which can be really important after a major one.

AI To The Rescue?

Artificial Intelligence has definitely been one of the most cutting edge technological innovations in the recent years and yet we are merely in the infancy stage when it comes to reaping its benefits.

There are virtually limitless applications of AI and now it seems scientists could use it to better forecast earthquake aftershocks. By feeding seismic data of past earthquakes to a neural network, they can get insights into things that simply weren't possible before.

All it takes is one missing link to enhance forecasts by an order of magnitude and by feeding more data to the neural network, scientists can really look for any patterns that might exist that may be able to help provide early warnings. Whether or not scientists will be able to predict the first earthquake, is anybody's guess.

As we know, even a few seconds can be the difference between life and death when a disaster strikes and so, it is quite important that we do anything possible to provide those few extra seconds of warning.

Skepticisms Abound

As is always the case anything new, there are skeptics here too. Some of them say that AI might not be that helpful at all to improve forecasts. Their reasoning is that past earthquakes might not be enough to predict future ones.

Yes, it might be true that earthquakes truly don't have any pattern at all and their occurence is simply random, in which case, no matter how much data you feed into an AI, it just wouldn't be able to make viable forecasts.

But it is interesting to see them try at the very least. Who know, there might be some aspects to this disaster that might provide some clue to improving forecasts even a tiny bit. Even if not the main earthquake, at least the aftershocks?

I am really looking forward to where research leads in this space. I really wish we could develope some type of warning system that gives people those valuable seconds that might just save their lives.