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Textbooks come alive with new, interactive AI tool
With just an iPad, students in any classroom across the world could soon reimagine the ordinary diagrams in any physics textbook—transforming these static images into 3D simulations that run, leap or spin across the page. These new, living textbooks are the brainchild of a team of computer scientists led by Ryo Suzuki at CU Boulder.
“Usually, those diagrams are fixed. We have to imagine what happens,” said Suzuki, assistant professor in the ATLAS Institute and Department of Computer Science. “But what if we could take any static diagram from any textbook and make it interactive?”
He and his colleagues recently took home a “best paper” award for their work at the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology this October in Pittsburgh.
The tool relies on a model called Segment Anything from the tech company Meta. It’s a computer visualization tool that allows users to click on a photo to isolate particular objects—a dog, or maybe a face. Similarly, through Augmented Physics, students and teachers select various objects inside a diagram, such as the skier and the ski jump, and assign those objects roles. The AI then applies some basic physics, such as the force of gravity, to make those objects move.
Generative AI Is Everywhere—Including At Birchwood Foods
Birchwood has historically used short videos to communicate safety and health-related information to its employees. This is generally an effective medium for learning, but only if the audience understands the language within the video. It was way too labor-intensive (and infeasible for English-only speakers) to record videos in every language that Birchwood employees speak, so Birchwood had previously used subtitles from a language translation company. That made the videos very expensive to produce, and many employees couldn’t read the captions.
In early 2023 Caitlin Hamstra, the Corporate Learning and Development Manager, mentioned to her boss that there might be a new solution to this problem based on recent AI developments. Kim Crawford, Birchwood’s head of HR, Safety, and Learning & Development, encouraged Hamstra to survey new technologies for translations in video-based learning. After experimenting with several different generative AI language models and vendors, Hamstra came across a UK-based startup called Synthesia. It specializes in creating avatar-based videos from text that can speak in multiple languages—131 of them at last count. Birchwood entered into a purchase agreement with Synthesia in October of 2023, and Hamstra and L&D Supervisor James Nolan began to implement their software.
Since that time, Birchwood has been very productive with AI-enabled translation. It has created 120 videos, each 5 or 6 minutes in length. They use avatars to do the speaking parts, and the 131 available languages cover 95% of the languages spoken at the plants. Crawford says that giving employees work instructions in their own language has led to very positive reactions. It helps, she says, with engagement, retention, safety, and buy-in to the job.
Sanofi uses the industrial metaverse to revolutionize training and operational efficiency
Sanofi is a leader in the development and manufacturing of both prescription and over-the-counter medications. To meet an increased demand for Sanofi pharmaceuticals, the Paris-based organization needed to find a way to make its production lines more streamlined while training and onboarding more operators. Sanofi launched a pilot project in it packaging workshop in Lisieux, France to work in the metaverse using Microsoft HoloLens 2 with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist. The aim was to streamline employee training procedures, enhance operator efficiency, and integrate a digital approach within the manufacturing environment. Using HoloLens 2, Sanofi has reduced training time for new operators from eight weeks to six weeks. The organization is also using HoloLens 2 for remote maintenance and troubleshooting, enabling quicker resolution of equipment issues. With the success of the pilot, Sanofi is looking to expand the solution across its value chain, with a specific emphasis on data analysis.
🧑🏭🧠 Hitachi to use generative AI to pass expert skills to next generation
Japan’s Hitachi will utilize generative artificial intelligence to pass on expert skills in maintenance and manufacturing to newer workers, aiming to blunt the impact of mass retirements of experienced employees. The company will use the technology to generate videos depicting difficulties or accidents at railways, power stations and manufacturing plants and use them in virtual training for employees.
Hitachi already has developed an AI system that creates images based on 3D data of plants and infrastructure. It projects possible malfunctions – smoke, a cave-in, a rail buckling – onto an image of an actual rail track. This can also be done on images of manufacturing sites, including metal processing and assembly lines. Hitachi will merge this technology into a program for virtual drills that is now under development.
Meet Your Match: Breaking Into the Manufacturing Industry in a Tech Role
In addition to fast-growing positions like software engineer, data analyst, data scientist, and UX designer, Deloitte surmises the reimagined manufacturing roles of tomorrow might include robot teaming coordinator, digital offering manager, drone data coordinator, predictive supply network analyst, digital twin engineer, and smart factory manager.
General Assembly bootcamps bridge this gap by training the next generation of tech talent. Once you complete one of our 12-week bootcamps, you can network with our many manufacturing employer partners to find your perfect fit. Since 2011, we’ve helped thousands of career changers discover a role and industry they love. Why not you?
How the industrial metaverse will transform manufacturing
Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc. is one of the world’s largest makers of welding equipment, with more than 42 manufacturing locations in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America — and its business depends on making sure enough welders are certified to use its equipment. For that reason, it felt it needed a school to train workers — but traditional training was slow, expensive and cumbersome. So it turned to technologies more often associated with consumer gaming: virtual reality and the metaverse. Now, trainees don VR headsets to do virtual welds, and they get immediate feedback in an immersive environment on how straight their pipe or sheet metal welds are. If they mess up, they can simply reset the virtual system instantly and keep getting better, and they don’t have to waste materials in repeated attempts. Once they’ve learned to do it right, they apply those skills in actual welding using Lincoln’s gear. The result: Lincoln Electric discovered that it could train welders in 23% less time. And more skilled welders means a larger potential market for its welding gear. “Virtual reality can reduce time while increasing the proficiency of training programs,” Randal Kenworthy, senior partner at technology consulting firm West Monroe, which has Lincoln as a client, told SiliconANGLE.
In order to see the benefits of training in the metaverse, Lincoln Electric and Iowa State University compared two groups, one that did entirely traditional hands-on training and one that did half hands-on and half VR welding. The results showed that welders who did the VR training had significantly higher levels of learning and team interaction, with a 41.6% increase in overall certification over the traditional group. And besides the 23% less time spent in overall training than the traditional group, using VR also greatly reduced training costs by $243 per student, because they could start over each time without wasting materials or losing time reassembling.
In the past four years, VR training has become even more prevalent across manufacturing — for example in automotive and aviation, where workers repeat rote steps on factory floors or even interact with robots. BMW uses VR to train multiple employees at once. Volkswagen AG formed a global initiative with 10,000 employees. Aviation manufacturing giant The Boeing Co. cut training time by 75% with VR. Aeronautics companies also use metaverse technologies to train pilots in the air, spurred by a pilot shortage that began with the pandemic. Loft Dynamics AG has been using VR simulators to train helicopter operators in the U.S., cutting air-time training by as much as 60%.