How Technology Can Predict Risk

Duncan Davies Chief Executive Officer, Notify Technology

Imight just be the only person in technology - possibly the world, and maybe even the metaverse - not to have used ChatGPT to try and write an article this year!

This is all my own work. Or is it?

We are already living in a ‘post-truth’ world where we’ve become more sceptical of what we see, read and hear. We’re doing more factchecking than we’ve ever had to do before. But whilst we all grab hold of our ergonomically optimised office seats and ponder the potential loss of 300 million jobs to AI, I want to talk about a much simpler aspect of AI that will help hundreds of roadworkers return home safe and unscathed each working day.

Notify are proud to support the Stamp It Out campaign. We’ve developed the ‘Jarvis App’ that allows any roadworker to report instances of abuse and incursions in under 40 seconds. We know that many such instances go unreported, for various reasons. The most tragic we hear is “it just comes with the job”. We need to change attitudes in our workforce as well as the wider public.

By putting something as simple as an app in the hands of our roadworkers, we’re able to create an immediate connection and engagement. By giving up 40 seconds of their time, they can help protect themselves and their colleagues. What they collectively provide is good quality, real-time data. The Jarvis app enables workers to report on their exact location, the project, date, time, the incident type and other environmental inputs.

Their report is routed to the right person at the right time. Of course, at that point the abuse or road incursion has already happened. These reports and the associated actions that are taken will enable the Stamp It Out campaign to highlight the true scale of the issue, and we plan to use that evidence to help drive a change in public attitudes.

Our ultimate vision is more ambitious. It’s to get in front of the event happening in the first place. To do that we’ll be leaning on the same technology that powers the super brain of ChatGPT.

As roadworkers provide a growing amount of information on multiple incidents, we’re able to use AI to identify trends and patterns. We’ll build up a real-time, dynamic picture that helps identify where the risks might be greatest or increasing rapidly.

Our AI assistant is called Holly, and this predictive engine will be able to recognise early warning signs and give employers insights on where risk is increasing, and proactive action should be taken.

Applying the kind of AI that powers ChatGPT we’ll start to see managers and supervisors being able to intervene proactively as risk levels rise.

The goal is to stop incidents happening in the first place and to help put resources to work where they will have the biggest impact. A simple app, and some very clever technology give us a great to chance to Stamp Out roadworker abuse for good.