Google flood forecasting expands in India ahead of monsoon season

Google has been publicly working on an AI-driven flood-prediction system since September, and that service is about to get a lot more data points. Google's flood forecasting service, which predicts where floods are likely to break out and alerts people nearby, will expand to new areas in India before summer monsoons strike. The software will hit regions around the Ganges river in particular.

With more data comes better forecasting, and Google says its flood-prediction tools are growing more accurate every day.

Google's AI efforts cover the gamut of medicine, emergency response, entertainment and technology. For instance, the company showed off a program that can detect early-stage lung cancer in scans, even when doctors can't see the physical signs themselves. Google also revealed 20 organizations that will receive $25 million in grants as part of the Google AI Impact Challenge, to support their AI-driven social efforts. These include a program to speed up the New York City Fire Department's emergency-response times, and a tool to help fact-checkers in the UK contextualize news and better distinguish misinformation.