WILDFIRES: AI on the job
Artificial intelligence may be the ally firefighters need to tame uncontrollable and unpredictable wildfires.
WITH wildfires becoming bigger and more destructive as the western part of the United States dries out and heats up, agencies and officials tasked with preventing and battling the blazes could soon have a new tool to add to their arsenal of prescribed burns, pick axes, chainsaws and aircraft.
The high-tech help could come from an area not normally associated with fighting wildfires: artificial intelligence (AI). And space.
Lockheed Martin Space, based in Jefferson County, Colorado, is tapping decades of experience in managing satellites, exploring space and providing information to the US military to offer more accurate data quicker to ground crews.
It is talking to the US Forest Service, university researchers, and a Colorado state agency about how its technology could help.
By generating more timely information about on-the-ground conditions and running computer programs to process massive amounts of data, Lockheed Martin representatives say they can map fire perimeters in minutes rather than the hours it can take now.
They say the AI and machine learning the company has applied to military use can enhance predictions about a fire’s direction and speed.
“The scenario that wildland fire operators and commanders work in is very similar to that of the organisations and folks who defend our homeland and allies.
“It’s a dynamic environment across multiple activities and responsibilities,” said Dan Lordan, senior manager for AI integration at Lockheed Martin’s Artificial Intelligence Center.
Lockheed Martin aims to use its technology developed over years in other areas to reduce the time it takes to gather information and make decisions about wildfires, said Rich Carter, business development director for Lockheed Martin Space’s Mission Solutions.
“The quicker you can react, hopefully then you can contain the fire faster and protect people’s properties and lives,” Carter said.
The concept of a regular fire season has all but vanished as drought and warmer temperatures make Western lands ripe for ignition.
ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is already being deployed in many settings from driverless cars to smart home devices, and researchers around the world are racing to expand its uses further and further.
One German scientist has built AI into a giant plastic nose that gives you a big smile when it works out what it has found.
Researcher Horst Hellbrück holds the nose over a glass of Irish whiskey to demonstrate its skills.
Seconds later, a green smiley face lights up on the back. The AI in the computer has identified the smell as whiskey, saying it is 99% certain this is what’s in the glass.
“We are not yet as good as a sniffer dog,” says Hellbruck, pointing out that his device cannot yet distinguish between Scotch and Bourbon, let alone individual types of whiskey.
Beyond whiskey, the small computer can smell out dangers, too, thanks to four sensors able to measure the carbon monoxide concentration to distinguish substances in the ambient air.
“We want to use it to show how AI can be applied. You no longer need a mainframe computer for this,” says Hellbruck.
The individual components for his device cost less than US$110 (RM480). So far, the nose can easily distinguish between coffee, whiskey and the air in the room.
Even more helpfully, the AI can warn people if the concentration levels of a hazardous substance reach an excessively high level at an industrial workplace, for example – before it causes problems for people, says Hellbruck.
Scientists around the world are working on teaching AI to smell and while computers cannot yet match an animal’s ability to identify odours, some take an approach that is close to nature.
At Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, researchers were impressed to find that a computer model managed to teach itself to smell in minutes, building a neural network that resembles the olfactory circuits animal brains use to process odours.
“Animals from fruit flies to humans all use essentially the same strategy to process olfactory information in the brain.
“But neuroscientists who trained an artificial neural network to take on a simple odour classification task were surprised to see it replicate biology’s strategy so faithfully,” according to an MIT publication.
Researchers at the University of Loughborough in Britain have been working for some time on using AI’S ability to smell as a diagnostic tool.
“My colleagues and I are developing an AI system that can smell human breath and learn how to identify a range of illness-revealing substances that we might breathe out,” Andrea Soltoggio, a senior lecturer at Loughborough University wrote in a blog post.
AI is already being used in medical settings, and the German institute’s staff are working on technology to carry out eye examinations through a smartphone to enable family doctors to make initial diagnoses.
The project aims to ensure peo
ple in rural areas get access to better levels of healthcare, without necessarily having to travel long distances to see specialists.
“But we don’t want to replace the ophthalmologist with this,” says Hellbruck.
These efforts should help diabetics by, for example, enabling them to attend check-ups at their local doctor instead of having to see a specialist every time.
While some doctors might not want machines interfering with their area of expertise, others might be more open to having support for routine tasks, he says.
“AI can be a help in medicine,” says a German health insurance specialist, adding that practical tests need to demonstrate whether the technology is able to support doctors in making diagnoses or treatment.
Though technology has the potential to make doctors’ everyday lives easier and bring additional benefits for patients, it is likely to be used as an add-on with the doctor-patient relationship being central to the healing process even in the digital age.
“I am an engineer who wants to improve people’s lives,” says Hellbruck.
“I want to be able to detect diseases better.”
The government of the northern state of Schleswig-holstein, where he works, values the research and is stumping up €9mil (Rm42.7mil) for 12 new AI professors at the universities of Flensburg, Kiel, Heide and Lubeck.
They are to start teaching in the winter semester.
“Data is the raw material for the use of AI,” says Dirk Schrodter, head of the state chancellery.
However, not everyone welcomes the use of AI and many scientists are understanding of people who are fearful that the use of AI could get carried away.
“You have to explain AI,” says Hellbruck. “And science fiction films, in particular, don’t help.”
He points out that people are already living with AI in settings from image processing to computer hotlines.
A decade from now, we will not be able to imagine life without it, he says.
“Often people don’t even realise that they are dealing with AI. When you feel the benefit, you also lose your fear of it.” – dpa