Using AI To Train Firefighters

Roland Piquepaille writes "Computer scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have developed DEFACTO, a training program which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help firefighters practice simulated emergency situations. The system is currently used by the Los Angeles Fire Department. DEFACTO has committees of AI 'agents' which can create disaster scenarios with images and maps seen in 3-D by the trainees. The software agents also evaluate the trainees' answers and help them to take better decisions. As one LAFD captain said, 'You can see if you're heading toward a mistake much more quickly.' Read more for additional details about this AI project and a photo of a LAFD Fire Captain using the system."

If you ask me...

I believe the fire captain is playing.. errr.. beta testing Sim City Societies, I swear I could see the Firefighter dispatch tool...

"America's Firemen"?

so can the USC use some of this code as the basis for a game? This could be used as both a recruiting tool and an aid to help recovering pyrophobics.

I'm not suggesting that it would be a shame for all this hard work to go into just training guys to save lives and property :) but the screenshots suggest that there could be elements of strategy (which block to approach from, consideration of wind conditions) and some cool FPS with the water cannon. Possibly some riot quelling action too ... are there any firefighting sims out there? Perhaps a multi-player which pits firefighters against arsonists?

Wrong AI challenge...

The AI program should be able to cook up a four-alarm chili that puts the best firehouse cook to shame.

Questionable Results

First off, it's a AI program. This will not give you that much practical experience compared to being in a more traditional controlled test environment. I used to run ship fire simulations, with actual fire and smoke in a building setup for this type of deal when I was in the Navy. We actually trained a group of Iranians back in the day, and I remember several trying to get out of the port holes on the building, because they freaked out. (ever see a 2 1/2" hose flying around? this will put a serious hurt on your team if nailed.) I guess my whole point is that actually going into a test environment on a moments notice, donning your equipment and getting a first hand view of smoke/fire is a better experience, IMHO.

Re:Questionable Results

As others have said, this simulator isn't meant to replace basic training. It's about planning how to attack a major fire.
 
...a more traditional controlled test environment.

The problem with such an environment is that it's limited in size, and has a fixed layout. This is no problem for initial training, but experienced firefighters will go in knowing what to expect, which skews the results.

With the simulator, you can present scenarios that are guaranteed to be unfamiliar to the trainee, and on a much larger scope than physically feasible.

Similar systems are used in the army: they have lots of hands-on weapons training for the soldiers, but also "command post exercises" where the trainee commanders just shuffle paper, issue radio orders etc. and no bullets are involved. In such an exercise the commander can learn how to manage his division, in scenarios that can't be played out in real life (e.g. because there's no training ground big enough to do battles with an entire division, plus there's the cost factor).

Re:Questionable Results

The thing that I'm wondering after reading TFA is whether or not the system gives the trainees too much information. The real skill in these kind of situations is making good decisions on incomplete data. I hope this training approach doesn't teach people to rely on information they won't have in the real world.

Not really AI

Since when were laptop batteries referred to as AI?

I heard of that before...

Is it something like this one? [system16.com]

Burning Rangers ?

Remember this gem of the Sega Saturn ?
Better prep for the future of FireFighting :)

http://www.theghz.com/br/br/br.html/ [theghz.com]

The land of kangaroos and drop bears

Over here in the lovable land of .au, we (CFA [vic.gov.au]) and other fire agencies around the country already use a training simulator made by VectorCommand in the UK (link [emergencyc...system.com]) which is very similar to this package in the OP. Career staff particularly, as well as volunteers, are readily ran through various exercises and drills on it. One of the most useful features is that it a scenario can be run individually or with a team of users (with networked computers).

VecorCommand have been doing this for Years

A company called vectorcommand have been doing this for years, check out there site http://www.vectorcommand.com/ [vectorcommand.com]www.vectorcommand.com

Perhaps, but...

I've gone thru actual fire fighting training, from structure to fuel storage/well head suppression to forest fire fighting in remote areas, and until you've had a chance to choke on real smoke and smell real burning flesh, you're not quite capable of grasping the gravity of what you may have gotten yourself into when things are no longer being simulated.

That said, simulations could help to weed out the ones that sign on as a result of the 'fever' and excitement that attracts a certain type looking only for the rush of action - action that eventually takes a heavy toll when a hapless individual has nothing more than their imagination to fall back on in a real emergency.

As a fire officer myself -- this looks limited

I'm a Lieutenant on a small department, and have been part of many "simulator" drills using not so artificial intelligence. We use an overhead project, software that allows drag and drop visual and audio changes to simulate the progression of a fire against a background image, and the real intelligence of a senior officer running the drill. The purpose of the drill is to give experience to the firefighters and officers making decision on how to attack the fire and when to take certain actions.

It is NOT about the individual firefighter on the line doing his job -- he's not meant to be focused on the big picture. He's got to focus on his local task as assigned -- search, vent, attack, etc.

The important thing, is that the person running the drill has a situation in his head about what caused the fire and how it will progress through the building, and can adjust the progression as a result of the decisions made by the officer making decisions. Once done, a great benefit of the experience is the discussion. Another huge benefit is the practice at simply making best use of radio traffic and keeping the situation in mind all at once.

The only advantage I see to this software they're showing is that it requires less people so you could have more people being in charge of the scenario and learning. They lose the experience coordinating the radio traffic, and the discussion at the end of how their tactics impacted the results would not benefit as many people.
 

Who is...

Al? Ohhhh... AI!

Using AI Trains to Fight Fires

... but what if the fire isn't near a train route!??!

You'll forgive me for not caring to read the article, but it's a Roland Piquepaille job. Is that wrong of me?

AI

I would have thought he would be kept pretty busy with the Nuggets... I guess he needs something to do during the playoffs.

You know what they say...

Fight fire with AI.

Where is the AI exactly?

What kind of AI is it? Is it rule-based AI, neural nets? You don't really need AI for physical simulations, and victim simulation may be able to be done with some basic probability rules. Rule-based AI is somethings not considered AI, harkening back to the 80's statement "Man, people are calling anything with IF statements 'Expert Systems'". I sense some possible hype here.

obligatory

In Soviet America, AI programs you!

Re:Wrong focus.

It says it helps them improve decision-making, which is what disaster scenarios are about.

I used to write and run crisis training for a large multi-national, and we expected that the participants would make mistakes. The basic thing we tried to do was to give them a chaotic situation and to teach and re-enforce their roles and responsibilities. The main thing was that they knew what their role was, and that they stuck to it. All crisis situations are basically getting something under control. It is a bit different for first responders, but not much.

In our case it was a bit different because we were dealing with people who had a role within the corporate crisis structure, but it was not their actual job within the organization (normally they might head legal, HR or finance - for example). So we had to make sure they were periodically trained so that they would be familiar with how everything worked in the event that the crisis mechanism was activated.

Training for firefighters is a bit different because it is their main job, and it is reinforcing skills they will use regularly.

Re:Dyslexia

Much cooler, and much more interesting than almost any of Roland's stories. He really fucking labours the point in almost everything he writes.

Has everyone stopped bitching about him because there's now some way of filtering his submission out of the front page?

Out of focus.

Wake up, look at my RSS feeds to find:

"Using AI to Fire Transformers"

Wow, that's deep. Oops.

Re:Looks like Microsoft got in on this one too...

-1 Off Topic? Oh right, this is /. bashing Microsoft = funny, bashing government failure = off topic.

Re:Tags: Boycottrolland pigpail pigpile rollandsuc

Gee, I'm sorry if the above was "flamebait," but Slashdot really needs to stop accepting Rolland Piquepaille's submissions, as his only mission in life appears to be spamming Slashdot with story submissions. Really, if someone else submitted the same story, why would one or more Slashdot editors consistently choose Rolland's submission over someone else's?