Occupational Health: The Promise of Artificial Intelligence to Improve Prevention

When accidents happen in a company, reports are often written spontaneously without formatting. Free words that contain a lot of detail, rich context, but have a downside: they are very difficult to use. A problem that artificial intelligence (AI) tools can overcome by being able to detect repetition of weak signals from a mass of text.

Can AI be an asset to worker health and safety? This is what many scientists are thinking today, observing the growing potential of technological solutions and the promising prospects they open for prevention in the workplace. “The progress is impressivenotes Martin Bier, Head of Research at the Digital Innovation Laboratory of the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (CNIL). In organizations with high-risk occupations where many accidents occur, AI can be a valuable aid in exploiting data and better understanding the incidence of incidents. »

Solutions are already deployed in some of them, such as Plus software from the company Safety Data – Omnicontact. He must “Improving security through automated processing of textual data and acting as decision support”, explains one of his employees, Celine Reynal. Other tools aim to monitor workplaces and their occupants in real-time, with the sole stated purpose of keeping them safe and issuing alerts when a threat is detected.

Some of these are already deployed in organizations, such as Blaxtair’s construction vehicle cameras that detect pedestrians using a facial recognition system. Others are still being tested, but could find their way into enterprises in the next decade.

Collaborative robot assistance

This is the case of connected equipment that can measure and transmit employee biometric data (for example, heart rate) and joint positions. AI will be able to warn about worker fatigue by analyzing a combination of different parameters.explains Timothée Silvestri, head of forecasting at the French Alternative Energy and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). The recording of certain movements or the accumulation of carrying weight can also be carried out with wearable sensors to avoid risks to the employee’s body, in particular, disorders of the musculoskeletal system. »