Are LLMs the New Ergonomists? Predicting Lifting Risks with LLMs And Machine Learning

Abstract

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are associated with lifting tasks and raise occupational health and safety concerns. With developments in biomechanics for manual labor, recent work has explored the utilizing sensors and machine learning for assessing lifting-related risks. While previous studies have studied the use of sensors and machine learning approaches, few research has examined the usage of LLMs with occupational health and safety applications. To address such gap, we conducted a laboratory experiment in which participants performed a series of distinct lifting tasks. This study investigates the accuracy of LLMs in predicting ergonomics risks and comparing the results with machine learning models.