The legendary writer Stephen King, famous for authoring numerous bestselling books in the genres of horror and the super natural, has published a tweet about artificial intelligence and its impact on current life in the United States, engaging with his 7.1 million audience on the X social media platform.

Stephen King ventures into AI topic

In his tweet, King wondered as to the origin of hurricane names and asked if those names are produced by artificial intelligence software. The writer did not give any examples of what exactly he meant but imwas likely referring to the trend of giving male and female names to hurricanes and tornadoes in the United States.

Who names hurricanes? Is it an AI type of thing?

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 10, 2024

However, the tradition of using human names to refer to hurricanes goes back hundreds of years. Hurricanes in the West Indies began to be named after the particular saint’s day when that hurricane took place.

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Hurricanes getting human first names

During World War II, storms were first named using a latitude/longitude designation of the places where they occurred. However, those names were difficult to memorize and report to the public. Therefore, meteorologists came up with the idea of giving storms the names of their wives and girlfriends. This practice began in the Pacific, and those storm and hurricane names were easy to remember. They were later adopted for the Atlantic as well.

After that, the World Meteorological Organization began to name storms, tornadoes, etc., not only using women’s but also men’s names.