AI in the electricity industry, steel production and child adoption

ScottishPower Energy Networks uses artificial intelligence to locate better potential power grid faults caused by severe weather, mobilise engineers and keep equipment ready to solve problems even before they occur. The “Predict4Resilience” project estimates the possibility of failure up to a week in advance, considering historical and current weather forecasts.

New York-based Fero Labs is pioneering the use of AI to increase steel recycling efficiency. Steel factories consume vast resources and produce large amounts of waste, so the company uses artificial intelligence to create “ecological” recipes for enterprises. By machine learning from historical data, the software recommends the amount of material that should be added to a specific batch of molten recycled steel.

Powered by artificial intelligence and an algorithm developed by researchers of an online dating site, Family Match was intended to increase the number of successful adoptions and improve the efficiency of child welfare agencies. However, an Associated Press (AP) investigation found that this one of the few adoption algorithms on the market has produced limited results in the United States. According to the AP, that is a lesson for social service agencies that want to use predictive analytics without understanding the limitations of the technology, especially when trying to overcome challenges such as finding homes for children described as difficult to adopt.