Hey Inspecta!

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its underlying algorithms are increasingly responsible for how we perform our daily lives - from cars with automated driver-assistance, to online vendors suggesting future purchases, to voice-assisted smart home controls. Safeguards inspectors of nuclear facilities are inundated with information and must process the information effectively and efficiently as they have limited time in a facility. Inspectors review reports, physically inspect equipment, take measurements and samples, review information from and maintain on-site sensors, understand context, look for anomalies in a facility, and use facts obtained to draw overall conclusions. Implementing AI as a tool for international safeguards inspections could significantly decrease the information processing burden on safeguards inspectors and nuclear facility operators. Use of AI will allow inspectors to complete their in-field activities more quickly and can identify patterns and their deviances among myriad data inputs at once in a way human inspectors and analysts cannot. This paper will provide research from a project called “Hey Inspecta” that defines what would be required from an international nuclear safeguards smart-assistant, performs a gap analysis in the current AI capabilities and R&D, and develops a technical roadmap describing how to integrate capabilities from industry with unique DOE complex expertise that will inform an AI research plan for the domain of international safeguards.