The industrial sector is eagerly awaiting the revolution of artificial intelligence and technology to improve the efficiency of its factories and manufacture robots capable of repairing similar ones.
At the Hannover Messe in Germany, where international industrial technology companies meet, this week excitement about the potential of generative AI dominated all conversations, across the booths.
At the booth of US information services company HPE, a young employee is chatting with a virtual assistant equipped with a generative artificial intelligence that draws from available data to create new content. The goal is to operate the articulated arm of a robot.
To solve a technical problem, HPE data analyst Tomas Meyer explains during the prototype demonstration, “factory workers no longer need to bring a qualified expert to the site, AI can take over” the repair process.
The American group, which employs 60,000 employees, has been cooperating for a year with the German start-up Aleph Alpha, which has a team of about fifty employees and is one of the main European competitors to the ChatGPT chatbot developed by the artificial intelligence company OpenAI.
In this industrial application, language and images are used to communicate with factory personnel who can, for example, send a picture of a device until the software itself detects errors or checks that it is installed correctly.
Made in Europe
“Unlike ChatGPT, our software can track the data that led it to make its decision,” says Meyer.
But even with Alpha Alpha’s success in raising 28 million euros so far, it is still a far cry from the billions that OpenAI has received from the American Microsoft.
For its part, the startup Heidelberg highlights a feature that can make a difference, which is the retention of customer data in Europe. In fact, the Italian Personal Data Protection Authority banned the use of the ChatGPT bot at the end of March on the grounds of non-compliance with European regulations regarding the collection and storage of bulk data.
Alfa’s CEO, Jonas Androulis, called on Europe to “not only focus on regulating the sector, but also on innovation”. “The European contribution to artificial intelligence should not be confined to a cookie bar!” he told AFP in a telephone interview.
At another booth at the fair, German giant Siemens also displayed an application of artificial intelligence to improve plant operation. In partnership with Microsoft, the industrial group promised to release this year a new version of the Teams application for group conversations, equipped with software
ChatGPT is specifically designed to help workers identify product defects.
revolution in action
Microsoft and Siemens, which say they work with many customers in the automotive, aerospace and aviation sectors, reject the notion that artificial intelligence will replace humans and cause job losses.
“We found that 70% of problems are not identified and therefore not resolved,” explains Antony Himmelgarn, CEO of Siemens Digital Industries Software. He asserts that by finding solutions, AI “does not replace anyone”, but rather enhances the “efficiency” of the industrial sector in particular.
The other advantage is that AI can “alleviate the shortage of skilled workers” that Germany is particularly afflicted with, says Jochen Köckler, director of the Hannover Fair.
Nearly 58% of industrialists in Europe’s largest economy complain of a workforce shortage, according to a study by the Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB) published last December.
Entrepreneur Jonas Androulis says we should not underestimate the disruptions to the labor market. “AI will completely change everything for jobs that can be performed in front of a computer. It’s not AI that will take jobs, it’s the company that uses AI that will take market share from the company that doesn’t,” he says.
