I keep hearing the term “AI” and I’m not sure what it means. Can you explain?

Artificial intelligence is the use of computers and machines to mimic the capabilities of the human mind, according to a report by IBM.

The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience.

AI has been used in the business world to perform repetitive tasks — like verifying documents, transcribing phone calls, or answering simple customer questions like “what time do you close?” — freeing humans to work on higher-impact problems

AI is now also used to automate workflows independently from a human team. For example, AI can help automate aspects of cybersecurity by continuously monitoring and analyzing network traffic. Similarly, a factory may use robots to inspect products for defects.

One of the thoughts on the benefits of AI is that it can eliminate manual errors in data processing, analytics, assembly in manufacturing, and other tasks through automation and algorithms that follow the same processes every single time. AI can also process more information more quickly than a human, finding patterns and discovering relationships in data that a human may miss.

Pressure readings

Why are the pressure readings given in millibars for hurricanes?

Atmospheric pressure is measured by a barometer. The units used are millibars. The greater the reading, the higher the pressure.

The bar and the millibar were introduced by Norwegian meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes, who was a founder of the modern practice of weather forecasting.

According to the National Weather Service, standard air pressure at sea level should be around 29.92, or 1013.25 millibars. The Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association states that a low-threat hurricane’s barometric pressure drops to about 28.94 inches of mercury (980 millibars), and an extreme Category 4 hurricane drops to 27.17 to 27.88 inches of mercury (920 to 944 millibars).

Hurricane Katrina was registered at 920 millibars at landfall on the Gulf Coast in 2005, the fourth lowest air pressure on record for an Atlantic storm.

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Informer is written by Crystal Stevenson, American Press executive editor. To ask a question, call 494-4098 and leave voice mail, or email informer@americanpress.com.