The benefits and dangers of using artificial intelligence in petrophysics
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is a method of data analysis that learns from data, identify patterns and makes predictions with the minimal human intervention. AI is bringing many benefits to petrophysical evaluation. Using case studies, this paper describes several successful applications. The future of AI has even more potential. However, if used carelessly there are potentially grave consequences. A complex Middle East Carbonate field needed a bespoke shaly water saturation equation. AI was used to ‘evolve’ an ideal equation, together with field specific saturation and cementation exponents. One UKCS gas field had an ‘oil problem’. Here, AI was used to unlock the hidden fluid information in the NMR T1 and T2 spectra and successfully differentiate oil and gas zones in real time. A North Sea field with 30 wells had shear velocity data (Vs) in only 4 wells. Vs was required for reservoir modelling and well bore stability prediction. AI was used to predict Vs in all 30 wells. Incorporating high vertical resolution data, the Vs predictions were even better than the recorded logs. As it is not economic to take core data on every well, AI is used to discover the relationships between logs, core, litho-facies and permeability in multi-dimensional data space. As a consequence, all wells in a field were populated with these data to build a robust reservoir model. In addition, the AI predicted data upscaled correctly unlike many conventional techniques. AI gives impressive results when automatically log quality controlling (LQC) and repairing electrical logs for bad hole and sections of missing data. AI doesn’t require prior knowledge of the petrophysical response equations and is self-calibrating. There are no parameters to pick or cross-plots to make. There is very little user intervention and AI avoids the problem of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ (GIGO), by ignoring noise and outliers. AI programs work with an unlimited number of electrical logs, core and gas chromatography data; and don’t ‘fall-over’ if some of those inputs are missing. AI programs currently being developed include ones where their machine code evolves using similar rules used by life’s DNA code. These AI programs pose considerable dangers far beyond the oil industry as described in this paper. A ‘risk assessment’ is essential on all AI programs so that all hazards and risk factors, that could cause harm, are identified and mitigated.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.024 | 0.039 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.016 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.019 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.010 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".