Key points
- AI is reshaping the workplace across all industries, including firefighting, but human skills remain essential.
- An AI-powered tool called Spark is helping predict and manage bushfires, demonstrating the practical applications of AI.
- AI offers some benefits like increased efficiency, but it also raises concerns including job displacement. Balancing these factors is key to successful integration.
In the heart of Australia's bushfires, where the flames can be as fierce as the conditions are extreme, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping save lives and protect property. Chantelle O'Brien, a seasoned bushfire system specialist, has witnessed firsthand the terrifying power of these natural disasters.
"I've been to some big fires where it's very terrifying, and you just have to focus on the tasking that you've been given," Chantelle said.
Bright spark fighting fire with AI
Chantelle is a bushfire system specialist with a long career fighting and managing bushfires. She works at the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council (AFAC) providing expert advice on bushfire behaviour. This includes how fires behave based on different fuels, terrain and weather.
Her role is to help predict how a fire will spread based on weather patterns and local landscapes. Accurate predictions help put firefighters in the right place at the right time and get information out quickly.
Previously, these predictions took hours and involved maps, paper, and pens. Today, technology has drastically changed the landscape of firefighting. Spark, a tool we developed that uses AI among other technologies, helps with fire predictions, significantly speeding up the process.
“Typically, those paper and pencil predictions would take about an hour. Spark can do a quick prediction and we can get a warning out within about ten minutes,” Chantelle said.
When you’re getting information out to frontline firefighters and communities in danger, every minute counts.
Spark uses data like weather patterns, vegetation types, terrain, and past fires to help predict how a fire might behave.
When a fire starts, a situation officer like Chantelle gets the location. She feeds that information into Spark. Spark then runs a simulation predicting how the blaze might spread. Firefighters report on the ground changes in weather or the fire's behaviour. Chantelle updates Spark with this real-time data so the simulation reflects the actual fire.
AI: Friend or foe in the future of work?
AI is becoming a familiar tool in many workplaces, from factories to finance, raising questions about the future of work. So, what does the future hold? Will human workers, even firefighters or weather forecasters, become redundant? Is AI coming for our jobs?
We still need expert firefighters to run an AI tool like Spark. This is likely reflective of how we’ll see AI used broadly to augment human experts in many fields.
Dr Claire Naughtin leads our Data61 digital futures team. She explained that as AI continues to evolve, the nature of work is bound to change.
"For the majority of the workforce, we're likely to all have our work and our jobs impacted and augmented by AI to some extent," she said.
We all need to ensure we’re continually learning and adapting to successfully navigate this transformation. But we shouldn’t be too quick to adopt every new AI tool that piques our interest.
Australia is in a period of declining productivity growth. We’re at a 60 year low in labour productivity growth right now. That's true of many developed countries across the world.
Productivity is essentially the value and output we can generate during the time that we spend in our work. And while some AI tools can make us more productive, they shouldn’t be seen as a silver bullet solution. We’re not going to laze our days away by the beach while a robot does all our work for us in a fraction of the time.
Soft skills the hard truth in the age of AI
There’s no denying we will see job losses and industry transformation as a result of AI. But Claire explained that the data in recruitment advertisements tells an interesting story about some of the changes we’ll see. While some repetitive or manual tasks can be automated, our uniquely human skills are critical.
“Interpersonal skills are amongst the highest and fastest growing skills category across the workforce. We're likely to see this continue as AI continues to augment and change how we complete our work,” Claire said.
As AI advances, its impact on various industries, including firefighting, is far-reaching. While tools like Spark can be useful, human expertise remains indispensable. The key lies in successful collaborative partnerships between humans and AI, where each complements the other’s strengths.
We explore these stories and more in episode four of our podcast Everyday AI season two. Tune in as we ignite your curiosity about the nuts and bolts of AI in the workplace.