Inventors, inventions, and engineers

Welcome to the 36th edition of Safe For Work. Some recent safety news and then a story inspired by how computing and humans are evolving together and what that may mean for engineering and safety. We end with the latest SFW Film, ¨Tal Variation.¨

In Safety News

• Inspired by last week´s story on AI, sound, and engine wear, we researched predictive technologies and found a solid journal article from earlier this year on the benefits of internet connected devices (IoT) and machine learning to enhance worker safety.

• Safety issues and an electrocution at a Brazil plant on September 9 is putting steel manufacturer Arcelor Mittal in the spotlight. Trade unions are organizing global protests. While the rhetoric in the article suggests ``worker´s lives over profits,´´ regular readers know that improving worker safety actually helps DRIVE profits.

• Are safety programs in your industry truly reducing risks—or just making you feel safer? New research using image-based tracking reveals why traditional incentives may be missing the mark. Learn how behavior-based safety programs could transform safety compliance in industries like construction, mining, and energy.

Guardian Angel

Matt Cantor

For Amanda, it’s something about how she puts down her spoon after she finishes eating her cereal. The always-on webcam above her television in the living room, which just catches the edge of the kitchen, can see her left hand in that view, maybe. Is it really sensitive enough to notice the tremor as she’s putting down the spoon?-- it’s so small.

“The system is a mystery,” says Amanda’s suddenly-former boss on the phone, as she’s about to get in her car to come to her suddenly-former job at the plant. She turns around and heads back inside. “Nobody knows, really, how it knows what it knows-- but it knows.”

He doesn’t say anything about the tremor. He doesn’t even know about the tremor-- the system doesn’t tell him about that. It doesn’t tell him about the version of the future where Amanda comes into work today and she steps through the door with her left foot first instead of her right foot, sure, just like she always does, but a few hours later her hand suffers a bigger twitch while she’s operating the forklift. There’s a future where she knocks over half the warehouse-- and now she doesn’t.

For Thomas, it’s something about he steps first with his left foot instead of with his right foot after tapping his ID-badge on the console outside and beeping open the door.

The surveillance-cameras flag it immediately-- they bypass his suddenly-former boss and go straight to the security-staff. Thomas is dragged out of the building by his elbows and left on the sidewalk. They take his badge, and they clear out his locker and mail him the contents-- that’s only right-- and they put a standing note in place to immediately inform the police if he ever comes within five-hundred feet of the building again; nobody mentions anything having to do with that in the email they send him that afternoon about how the system is a mystery.

It’s a good thing, know the few people who know. For the past two years, Thomas has stepped through that door with his right foot first instead of his left-- every single day for the past two years. To step through now with his left foot first-- that kind of chaos just doesn’t belong in the workplace. That kind of instability just has to be dealt with. There’s a future where Thomas gets into an argument with Lindsay, today. There’s a future where he comes back tomorrow with the old rifle his father left him, which he keeps in the shed out back of the house he’s probably not going to be able to afford anymore. Nobody wants that future-- and nobody knows, really, how the system knows what it knows-- but it knows.

You just can’t trust a person who starts switching first-feet like that.

For Christopher, it’s something about how his mother called him two days earlier-- something about the tone of her voice when she hung up the phone. Run the calculations through the neGuardian Angel

The Autonomous Design System had a few notes to give– a few problems, or maybe questions, or maybe suggestions. The way it phrases things always seemed to be all of those things at once. Now, it noticed the doors Sheila specced on her first draft of the manufacturing facility are taller than expected.

“The average adult man is 5’8”, with the most generous statistical variance nonetheless leading to an extremely low chance that anyone taller than 6’5” would need to use this doorway. While a 7’ doorway may create a pleasing aesthetic effect, it is not the most efficient size for construction or structural integrity.”

“Workboots and hard-hats,” muttered Sheila, as something next to an afterthought. It wasn’t the system’s fault– it had been initially designed and trained for the blueprinting of hospitals and schools– not heavy industrial facilities like this one. And this was just part of its retraining– of course there were going to be little mistakes. That was the whole point. “We can reinforce here– and here.”-- she drew two quick lines to either side of the door, on the plan. “My father was 6’9”,” she thought, but didn’t say.

“Thank you for teaching me, Ms. Shahri. I will incorporate taller doors into all subsequent industrial design-proposals in order to facilitate the extra height from thick-soled work-boots and reinforced hard-hats. Updating now.”

Kevin has to duck his head, but only very slightly, to keep the top of his hard-hat from clipping the top of the door– he doesn’t even really notice, until he does. His whole life, he’s been having to duck his 6’7” person-frame a lot lower below door-frames than this here– and boy, has it put the mother of all cricks in his neck over the years. This is a nice change.

“Huh,” he says quietly to himself. “Huh.”

“What about this, here?” asked Sheila– another door, in the system’s updated design-proposal. “What’s this weird little lip along the bottom?”

“In an effort to reduce construction-costs, I have raised the bottoms of the doors in order to bring their tops closer to the ceiling– per our conversation just now, Ms. Shahri. This way, there will be no need to add extra structural reinforcement elsewhere. There is precedence for this technique– American Aircraft Carriers in the 20th and 21st century had similar passages between bulkheads.”

“These are industrial workers, not sailors,” said Sheila– again, without any judgment– this was all part of the process, wasn’t it?

“Is it not normal for industrial workers to require extra caution while navigating their environment?” asked the system– again, again, without any judgment. It was not a rhetorical question.

Samantha has an entire stack of reports to get through before her shift ends– it always winds up like this, doesn’t it? But the pace of things is the pace of things, and if it wasn’t, nobody would ever be on top of anything at all. Samantha’s way of staying on top of things is to do it while walking: she fills in the boxes she’s supposed to fill in; she checks off the boxes she’s supposed to check off; she thinks about how to come up with ten different ways to write in at least two sentences that the inspection went well without sounding like she’s just repeating herself over and over; she’s frowning and correcting the inspection-date that she’s just noticed she’s written wrong; she’s smashing her toe so hard against the lip at the bottom of the door that half the bones in her foot shatter and she goes tumbling down to the floor, breaking half her teeth, too, because her hands are too full to catch herself.

Or no, that’s not what happens.

“Here, try it like this,” said Sheila. “If we make the door slightly narrower, and bulge the edges out a very tiny bit… see? After that, we only need about half as much reinforcement– and it really is worth the extra cost.”

“Why is it worth the extra cost? Is it not easier to simply train workers to step carefully around doors?”

It was, in a way. Sheila couldn’t use the story of Samantha to explain to the system what was best because it hadn’t happened yet. It wouldn’t happen– or not-happen– for another five years, until the facility had already been built. She didn’t know anything about it. She didn’t know how to make up a story like that which would have made sense to a machine, in any case. She sat silent for a moment, and then she nodded. “Because humans like me aren’t as easy to train as machines like you are. It’s better to just assume we’ll be distracted, or not understand, or not care, or make mistakes of some other kind– I don’t know. But that’s how we are.”

A long pause, as the system processed. It went on. And on. Sheila started to wonder if maybe she’d just planted the seeds of some future uprising against humanity on the grounds of fragility and frailty– “It’s all for your own good,” the machines would say. But no, she knew No, no. That was just too Hollywood, and this was life– and was it even a falsehood, what she’d gone and said? Was it even any different from what she was thinking about all the time when she was drawing up plans like this?

Finally– “Perhaps this is the better solution.”

Sheila peered at the blueprint– “Yeah,” she said. ”Yeah. That’s great.”-- it really was. Instead of all sorts of nonsense with a narrower door and strange shapes, difficult to mold, the system had simply thickened the door a little bit out into the hallway to make up the structural difference. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Samantha’s heart stops for a moment as she feels herself tripping– but no, she isn’t tripping over the lower lip of the door. There isn’t a lower lip on this door at all– on any of the doors in the facility. What there is is a bright yellow line on the floor that reminds you to be careful of bumping accidentally into the unusually long edges of the door– and what it’s done here is remind Samantha instead of a speed-bump, painted that same yellow, and made her slow down instead of ruining her suspension– or twisting an ankle.

“Huh,” she says. “Huh.”-- and she means it.

She tucks her paperwork under her arm– it can wait another minute or two for her to get to the office. There’s keeping on top of things, and then there’s keeping all your bones intact. She doesn’t want to push her luck.

Is it even luck?

She walks across the special floor material that slowly saps all lingering static charge from her body before she touches the metal knob to her office door. She stands at the window of hyperengineered glass that would break into rounded shards if she took a hammer to it– or if the balcony above her window came collapsing down– but of course if the supports buckled, the balcony wouldn’t swing inwards or outwards, but instead tilt sideways, just as it had been designed, to protect the windows below.

Samantha puts down the papers on her desk, and as she’s stepping away again to take a longer look out the window, just breathe and think for a bit, she knocks her phone off the edge, down to the floor, where it cracks– except she doesn’t; a little rush of adrenaline through her system as she feels the phone accidentally moving– a little rush of relief as the phone catches on the little raised ridge around the edge of the table.

“Maybe I have a guardian angel,” she laughs.

Maybe she does, or maybe she doesn’t– but she did.

SFW Films presents Tal Variation

In a near-future war, an AI military strategist sacrifices a battle to ensure victory in an upcoming global conflict, outsmarting not only her opponents but also her creators, who fail to see the larger game she’s playing. Adapted from the story of Julia in issue 20.

We wrap up our series on innovators and inventions next week with a story inspired by the evolution of haptic feedback and Ready Player One.

Stay safe.