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AI can predict tipping points for systems from forests to power grids

Combining two neural networks has helped researchers predict potentially disastrous collapses in complex systems, such as financial crashes or power blackouts

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

24 July 2024

Tipping points can leave once lush forests dried out

Piotr Poznan/Shutterstock

AI can predict when complex systems like forests, animal populations or the power grid will suddenly start behaving very differently. Identifying such tipping points may help avert disastrous collapses in biology or human infrastructure.

β€œHistory is full of harmful critical transitions, such as financial market crashes, disease outbreaks and blackouts,” says at Tongji University in China.

To make predicting such transitions more precise, he and his colleagues combined two different types of…

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