Generative Humane-Machine Interaction in Oil & Gas

Abstract

Abstract From the Acheulean stone tools in prehistory first made by the homo ergaster around 250.000 BCE (V. Smil, 2017) to the wooden plows in Mesopotamia enabling first steps to enabling machine-assisted agriculture around 4.000 BCE (V. Smil, 2017) and then the scaling of waterwheels in Greece and Rome civilizations from 100 BCE to 600 CE (V. Smil, 2017) along with following developments of windmills and blast furnaces that preceded the revolutions of steam, mechanical, combustion and electrical machines in recent history, there is one common aspect that has remained true across all civilizations: how humans interact with machines for greater efficiency, effectiveness and ultimately better quality of life. The arrival of information technology in the 20th century transformed that interaction in many ways, starting with a dream of a small shop in Redmond, WA, which vision at its foundation in 1974 was to have a personal computer in every single household of the world and later a company from California bringing mobile phones into everyone's hands, to name a few examples out of many. This citizen-based change quickly expanded to industrial operations and machines that used to be "dumb" for ages suddenly start speaking and telling humans how they feel through basic arrangements of measurement sensors, data historians and visualization technologies. At the moment of development of this paper we are at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century and looking back and reflecting on what has been the most significant development during this period affecting human-machine interaction, it is the author's belief that it is in the field of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the theory and development of computer systems capable of performing tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages (H.A. Simon, 1996). The goal of AI is to create machines that can perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence. (S. Russell et al., 2016) The power of cognitive and machine learning services, together with rapid advancements in robotics and autonomous systems, will significantly change the way humans interact with machines and subsequently drive impact inflection points on productivity and efficiency. Within the artificial intelligence realm, probably one of the most exciting technological developments of today lies around generative AI, which could be briefly defined as a form of artificial intelligence in which models are trained to generate new original content based on natural language input (learn.microsoft.com). This paper focuses on how artificial intelligence in general and particularly generative AI could transform the human-machine interaction in the oil and gas industry, covering specific examples in the fields of artificial lift and power generation.