Recently a colleague of mine shown us a demo using a fresh model designing a building construction detail live, in minutes, which is a function that we struggled to bring into our construction design software due to resource limitations (and legacy barriers) for long. All this in the context of offsite constructions where the design can directly be exported to the right CNC machines in the factory, and arranged for delivery and assembly order. We have let ourself amazed, despite the controlled demo situation and the small detail, it was a remarkable performance. For a minute or so, but thinking further, why would the customers (construction design engineers) of our competitors flow to our legacy software full of legacy pitfalls they know about and have to live with when they can turn to AI for a fresh design solution themselves, just like we did? They know the context better than us anyway, just do not have time for bit-carving. Why would we have customers when customers of our customers can turn to an AI for a design that is buildable? I was consulting one model about a structural engineering detail, and it was quite well informed I have to say. From training data alone. I felt, maybe I need to rethink the rest of my career, that is not that long but still uncomfortably long for being predictable beyond a few years.

Well, things are not that bleak, probably, at least not for our customers. Regulations (accountability) and physical world matters still require them. But not us for our customers, not that much and not for too long. They tend to be the tech savvy folks eager to jump at adjacent domains when it saves them a percentage or two off the construction costs (not a small pile of money), and AI with its programming language of English and deep knowledge pool is not that big a jump from their standpoint. Our domain is pretty well formulated, regulated, documented, inherently built on do-check-adjust loops already. With a thing like AI it might worth to try making and improving a design solution in a second loop. But they also started to invest in robots already driven by software for their factories, AI might jump in there, and I wonder how much more until the regulations are forced to change by Super Intelligent (R) politicians for the sake of AI accelerated built environments (housing crisis, you know!), shifting the AI use further out towards generic population, wanting to order a new two bathroom condo for next Friday from Alibaba. The conservative construction business is a nuisance and obstacle in the way of modernisations anyway, go around it!

I will go to work tomorrow, and for some time, but the picture above feel less and less fictious with each passing day of AI news and usage.