[chrisshroba]

> Bellwether, a moonshot at Alphabet's X, is using Earth AI to provide hurricane predictions insights for global insurance broker McGill and Partners. This enables McGill's clients to pay claims faster so homeowners can start rebuilding sooner.

Hm, I'm quite skeptical about this claim.

[tencentshill]

Could be a nice expensive contractor option for replacing the NOAA's public data that we lost. But it probably wont be picked up because it has to study the climate, which is a bad word now.

[CobrastanJorji]

You can totally create a private version of NOAA so long as you keep the messaging about insurance intelligence and never, ever speculate out loud about the causes of hurricanes. And if that's not enough, just do what Meta did and hire some shmuck like Robby Starbuck to signal that you're on the right team.

[mrtesthah]

I see the humor in this but you'd still need to operate your own satellites.

[wlesieutre]

What they want is for the government to run the satellites and provide the data on the taxpayers' dime, but only let private companies interpret that data so they can sell their forecasting

https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/14/politics/noaa-nominee-accuwea... (note: old news)

[vineyardmike]

Google (with partner companies) launched a climate-monitoring satellite last year. Thanks to SpaceX, it’s cheaper than ever for private organizations to launch satellites.

[Legend2440]

Seems plausible to me. It would allow them to start contracting CAT adjusters as soon as a hurricane is expected, before other insurers start bidding for them.

Will this actually pay off for them? Who knows. But insurers are quite into ML for claims/underwriting these days, so I'd believe they're giving it a try.

[KRAKRISMOTT]

Wdym by 'bid for them'? Won't the MGA want to get rid of their contracts in an area that's about to be hit by a hurricane ASAP?

[Legend2440]

You need a large workforce of adjusters to handle big events like a hurricane, but you don’t need them all the time. So catastrophe adjusters are often independent contractors.

Pay is good but hours are long, and you are often deployed far away from home.

[piperswe]

They want to pay adjusters and contractors the least amount possible - that's what they're bidding on

[olq]

More like booking them for the availability and likely a fixed non-hurricane-panic price.

[moffkalast]

> McGill and Partners

Hi, I'm Saul Goodman. Did you know that you have hurricanes? The constitution says you do! And so do AI.

[notatoad]

quicker approvals probably also means quicker denials, if you want to look at the negative side of it.

[giobox]

A quicker denial is still better than a long drawn out one, even if it isn't the outcome you might want.

[apples_oranges]

Haha yeah. Perhaps a marketing gimmick with an asterisk..

[citizenpaul]

Sorry but our AI said your home destroyed in the hurricane was not in fact destroyed by a hurricane. Claim denied. We accept no further inquiries on the matter.

100% of claims paid out instantly, so its kinda true.

I suspect you don't have an MBA /s