Zero-shot forecasting and the nature of time
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006 | 2026-02-04
In this episode, we're covering two papers on zero-shot forecasting: NXAI's TiRex and Amazon's Chronos-2. You may be asking… Is it pronounced tee·rɛks? Is it tye·rɛks? Is it a titan? God of time? Is a time series just a sequence? Is a sequence just a sentence? Is time a sentence? Is time a poem? As a poem constellates images, and an LLM strings together tokens, the authors apply this approach to time series forecasting, offering new opportunities for zero-shot weather prediction.
We discuss the history of the term "Zero-shot," breakdown each paper from training data to industry applications, and wax poetic about the paradigm shift these models are bringing to earth systems forecasting.
Papers
- TiRex: Zero-Shot Forecasting Across Long and Short Horizons with Enhanced In-Context Learning, Auer et al
- Chronos-2: From Univariate to Universal Forecasting, Ansari et al
Recommended reading
- The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
- God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning by Meghan O'Gieblyn
- The Odyssey by Homer (Translated by Emily Wilson)
- The Hainish Cycle series by Ursula K. Le Guin