Humans vs. AI in Oil & Gas via @UnsistDS

Can Humans and AI work together?

Posted on May 4, 2017 at 3:54pm

In the past couple of months we’ve spent a lot of time meeting with different experts in the Oil & Gas industry such as with geologists, production managers, drillers, manufacturers etc. Every conversation we had about AI we have been asked the question: Is AI going to replace humans in Oil & Gas?

This question led us to research this issue and to have a better understanding of where this industry is going. Our conclusion was that the collaboration between humans and AI is the right answer. Both have some strengths and weaknesses which are opposite from each other, so combining domain experts and AI could lead the industry to a new age. Below we list some of the strengths of each.

Domain Knowledge Strengths

Humans are much better in pattern recognition
Domain knowledge is required to ask the right questions, focus machines in the right direction and assess the quality of a result
Human brains are trained over many years including enormous amount of experience and data
Our brains are still the most intelligent thing on this earth

AI Strengths

Machines can react faster in real-time
Machines can process and analyze big amounts of historical data
AI has less subjective bias
Machines don’t get tired doing repetitive tasks

Humans Can Use AI to Make Better Decisions

Letting AI handle the analysis, predictions and computations could give the humans the opportunity to focus on looking at problems with a much wider view that will enable them to understand the problem better and act better. Using domain experts and AI we can build a loop where the domain experts directs the AI machines to solve the right problems, then the AI machines give the humans better insights about the problem that leads the human to give better directions for the machines and so on. Adopting this approach would lead the Oil & Gas ecosystem to be much more cost effective and productive.

We’d love to hear from you!

At Unsist we understand that the domain knowledge in the Oil & Gas industry is very powerful, therefore we spend a lot of our time speaking and learning from experts in the field so we can built good AI machines that will collaborate with those experts.

Roi Shabshin is a co-founder of Unsist, a Calgary-based technology company that develops predictive analytics software for the oil & gas industry. Find out more on social media!