Artificial intelligence – Promise vs. reality in energy tech (an oilfield perspective)

Despite its faults and inaccuracies in early iterations, there's no denying that AI is transforming our daily lives at an incredible pace and most of the time the features, and broadly speaking, the benefits it offers are extremely useful. But in terms of its ability to completely transform the energy industry (and specifically oilfield) economics it's important to consider why much of the early AI conversation needs to be tempered with a degree of objectivity. The reality is one of marginal gains in many areas - much like creating a good sports team, over time these gains add up rather than causing instantaneous results everywhere. As a short historical background on AI's components, machine learning was introduced relatively early, when Frank Rosenblatt introduced the first artificial neural network (ANN) in 1958. Two years later Bernard Widrow and Marcian Hoff used this new technology to create MADELINE, an ANN that could eliminate echo in phone lines, which is still in use today.