AI could help the construction industry work faster--and keep its workforce accident-free

Construction workers are killed on the job five times more often than other laborers. Now a new kind of construction worker--a data scientist--aims to use artificial intelligence to predict the likelihood of injury and intervene. Suffolk, a Boston-based general contractor with annual sales of $3 billion, is developing an algorithm that analyzes photos from its job sites, scans them for safety hazards such as workers not wearing protective equipment, and correlates the images with its accident records. The company is still fine-tuning the technology but says it could potentially compute "risk ratings" for projects so safety briefings can be held when an elevated threat is detected. Suffolk is also writing an algorithm that would parse information from a variety of sources, including 10 years of scheduling data from its archives, and forecast project delays--information that could be communicated to building owners and subcontractors.