Google's AI Sends Money to Victims of Hurricane Ian

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Content source

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/10/hurricane-ian-destroyed-their-homes-algorithms-sent-them-money/

Nearly 3,500 residents of Collier, Charlotte, and Lee Counties received a push notification on their smartphones offering $700 cash assistance, no questions asked. A Google algorithm deployed in partnership with nonprofit GiveDirectly had estimated from satellite images that those people lived in badly damaged neighborhoods and needed some help.

The Florida project was powered by a mapping tool called Delphi, developed by four Google machine-learning experts who worked with GiveDirectly over six months starting in late 2019. The software highlights communities in need after disasters such as hurricanes by overlaying live maps of storm damage with data on poverty from sources including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The storm damage data is provided by another Google tool, called Skai, that uses machine learning to analyze satellite imagery from before and after a disaster and estimate the severity of damage to buildings.