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

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.

“History is full of harmful critical transitions, such as financial market crashes, disease outbreaks and blackouts,” says Gang Yan at Tongji University in China.

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