New developments in technology can have ripple effects that reach far beyond one area of industry. People have begun to enthusiastically embrace artificial intelligence (AI) as the technology of the future. The growth of AI could have implications for many different industries, including the construction sector.
Even as major software developers indicate that there are challenges in the current approach to AI, social enthusiasm for these programs has only continued to rise in recent months. AI is capable of reviewing huge amounts of information in less time than it would take humans to do the same thing. It can potentially automate processes that have previously been labor-intensive or particularly dangerous. Especially when looking at historically risky professions, like construction, the possibility exists for AI technology to make a massive difference in worker safety.
Automating tasks and observing others
Some work is prohibitively difficult to complete with simple tools and machinery. However, more complex equipment powered by AI could potentially perform skilled work, such as welding at a significant elevation, all without a worker physically present in unsafe conditions.
Additionally, AI can help provide monitoring that could save workers’ lives when they are in dangerous environments. The use of camera systems monitored by AI could help identify when workers need help or emergency medical care. Monitoring systems could also help detect situations in which workers might need to evacuate, such as a fire stories below the job site or an approaching storm.
Analyzing data to uncover trends
I can also help find commonalities between different situations where workers get hurt or die on the job. AI could potentially connect seemingly unrelated incidents and help businesses find trends in the situations that put employees in the hospital or cost worker lives.
Additionally, AI could prove helpful when analyzing construction plans and blueprints to help catch mistakes made by human engineers that could lead to unnecessary worker or occupant risk in the future. AI analysis could make construction more efficient and also more sustainable. As companies begin to embrace AI as an assistive tool for project safety, the rate of workplace tragedies could very well begin to drop in one of the most dangerous professions.
Understanding how advances in other sectors, like AI, could protect construction workers might lead to a safer future through the earlier adoption of useful technology.
