Page 33: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Nov/Dec 2024)

32 34

while back, an energy major had an unfathomable, intermit- tent problem with its drilling operations. It was beginning A to cost big money, and experts from IBM were called in. After an extensive

AI and human examination of historical sen- sor data, the problem was determined to be caused by whale song during the mating sea- son which was reverberating in the drill pipe.

As a classic demonstration of the power of AI, the situation brought together the key compo- nents of data science: data, models, processing speed and the human mind.

The aim is never to take the human out of the loop, says Carol Lee Anderson, IBM’s tech- nology GM for the oil and gas industry, just to rid them of laborious and repetitive tasks and provide them with real-time decision support. “You still need somebody that can interpret the data and make the right decisions.”

According to IBM, AI is technology that enables computers and machines to simu- late human learning, comprehension, prob- lem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy. For oil and gas companies, IBM often puts it to use for asset management, op- erational effciency and safety. It’s an indus- try with big money and big risk. If things go wrong, people could die. “When the stakes are high, so are the benefts,” says Anderson.

Directly underneath AI is machine learn- ing (ML) which involves creating models by training an algorithm to make predictions or decisions based on data. Here it’s important to guard against hallucinations - when a model perceives patterns or objects that are nonex- istent, creating nonsensical or inaccurate out- puts. “IBM is about risk reduction, and we back our governance in legal terms,” she says.

Woodside and IBM have worked togeth- er to implement solutions that can extract meaningful insights from 30 years of dense and complex engineering data. Woodside considers that AI enables the development of

QUANTUM COMPUTING IS EXPECTED TO faster models that can explore larger solution

DWARF THE POTENTIAL THAT AI BRINGS TO spaces, identifying optimal operating condi-

DATA PROCESSING AND INTERPRETATION. tions more effciently. This approach can be november/december 2024 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 33