Aggregates Business has published a feature interview with David Boardman, founder and CEO of EveryPoint®. Editor Guy Woodford asked David about artificial intelligence in the aggregates industry, where the product is rock, sand and gravel held in stockpiles.
Read "From Stockpiles to Superpowers" at Aggregates Business
The physical world is hard to digitize
Software is good at records that already exist. Bulk materials do not start out as records. As David told Aggregates Business, "things don't come with barcodes and they don't come in boxes."
That gap is where EveryPoint works. We train computer vision and machine learning to perceive what's in front of a camera and turn it into accurate, actionable data. Computer vision since 2011; machine learning for over a decade.
In aggregates, the asset is the pile
"The money maker is the pile," David said. Our products for the industry measure that pile: SR Measure® from a phone, and Stockpile Reports® from imagery from a phone, drone, or installed camera.
Good AI needs good inputs
David's caution for companies starting AI projects is about inputs, not models: "what they're going to discover is that they have bad data." Put AI on top of bad numbers, he said, and "AI amplifies errors more than it amplifies productivity."
For Physical AI, the input is a measurement of the real world. That is why we think perception comes first. We wrote about it in Why Perception Is the Foundation of Physical AI.
Skilled people, stronger tools
David does not expect AI to end work in the industry. He expects it to give skilled people "superpowers."
Read the interview
Thanks to Guy Woodford and Aggregates Business for the conversation. Read the full interview at Aggregates Business. New to the term? Start with What is Physical AI?