Our CEO and Founder Harry Helmrich hosted a workshop on A.I. in Industry at the 43rd Annual International Phosphate Fertilizer and Sulfuric Acid Technology Conference (https://aiche-cf.org/Clearwater_Conference) on June 9th 2023 in Clearwater, FL.

We are thrilled to share the highlights of the AI workshop we held at the Annual Phosphoric and Sulfuric Acid Conference. The workshop focused on artificial intelligence and its transformative potential within the phosphoric and sulfuric acid industry as well as the core of what is important when implementing A.I.

The Workshop

The workshop feature multiple panelists discussing the role of A.I. in real-world business applications. Panelists included two professors from the University of South Florida, Dr. John Licato and Dr. Larry Hall, as well as Marcos Ortiz, Senior Manager of Operational Excellence at Mosaic. Each panelist presented their insights into Artificial Intelligence.

A common theme among all 4 participants was that, while A.I. is revolutionizing the way business problems can be solved, there is still a lot of work to do and a large amount of technical risk in deploying A.I. successfully.

Marcos Ortiz presented on the work the Mosaic Data Science group was doing with computer vision to solve problems that have been difficult to solve with other sensors and technologies. Marcos painted an exciting picture of how A.I. has helped Mosaic improve their operations, while also cautioning the audience that A.I. has achieved “Hyper Buzzword Status”. Marcos’ recommendations were to invest in talent and avoid large, expensive engagements

Dr. John Licato, who founded the Advancing Machine and Human Reasoning Lab (AMHR), specializes in AI and NLP. Dr. Licato, who joined remotely, provided technical insights and history into how Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT came into existence and how a serendipitous research process produced such impressive models.

Dr. Larry Hall, the Co-Director of USF’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence, presented on his experience building multiple types of models prior to the recent surge of A.I. In Dr. Hall’s presentation, he showed some of the risks and pitfalls of relying on A.I. tools like ChatGPT, by showing how ChatGPT provided incorrect information about the Phosphoric Acid industry.

Harry Helmrich, Canopy Vision CEO and Founder, presented on the challenges of deploying computer vision in industrial applications, including the difficulty of obtaining necessary data and other hardware-related challenges. Harry shared videos from many projects that his team has worked on in the Phosphate Fertilizer industry and cautioned the audience that while these projects still have a relatively high failure rate, the companies who are willing to accept those failures and continue innovating are the ones that will come ahead and realize meaningful financial and EHS(Environment, Health and safety) benefits.

After the panelists presented, a Q&A session was held where audience members were able to ask questions to the panelists. Several questions centered around “how can I or my company get started learning and implementing A.I.?”. The workshop was attended by approximately 75 audience members in a packed room!

Summery

The workshop was a great success and we hope it was a fantastic learning experience for all the attendees. We felt that overall we highlighted the risks of A.I as well as many of the benefits. As well as companies that are working with A.I should keep in mind to achieve success and not tripp on the finish line