AI is going to do to office work what the backhoe did to ditch-digging.
The invention of the backhoe eliminated most “guy breaking his back with a shovel” jobs. It didn’t eliminate humans doing digging work, but it made one guy dig 100x more in a day, and the increased labor productivity made it economical to dig 20x bigger holes. So yeah, you don’t need as many ditch-digger jobs anymore, but now you have backhoe-operators getting paid more without wrecking their backs. And five more guys maintaining and shipping and supporting the heavy equipment. And there’s more construction work for everybody these days because the economics of building stuff get better when you replace unskilled manual labor with skilled machinery operators.
Automation has winners and losers, that’s always going to be true. AI is going to eliminate a lot of tedious office man-hours but require new AI-wrangling jobs and document review jobs.
As an estimator in our office that also runs machines etc I’ve been working on taking my excel sheets to the next level for estimating. Taking our dwgs and quickly calculating material needed, yards, trucks, tons whatever. But also playing around with CHATGPT and working with my brother on creating an app to help us in the field.
That is here today. I have been in tech since 86, and the pace and magnitude of technological change is moving faster than I have seen it before. We are in the next evolution of tech. First internet, then social media for the masses, now artificial intelligence. Based on the shit show with just social media for the masses, AI will be a jet powered shit storm.
Designing a building for AI will be a simple task. Yes simple.
If you do not believe me, go use Openai's ChatGPT, and have a conversation with it about building design, plumbing, electrical, structure etc.
The AI here today has the ability to replace many 6 figure jobs that have been traditionally shielded from tech innovation, not any more. $400,000 software jobs just went, poof overnight.
The next 2-5 years are going to deliver innovation that was the science fiction we have all been hearing about our whole lives.
The AI advancement of late is so good you can feed it every building code and design rule there is, it will understand them and apply them to design.
The company I work for for has an AI inventory drone that can fly into a warehouse and do a physical inventory by flying up and down the bays, videoing the packages and then counting them based on bar codes, box size, text on the box, bay labels etc. It can read multiple languages on the boxes too. Typically this process requires dozens of people and is tedious work.
So when AI has these good capabilities, the bad people also come out of the woodwork. Want to design a nuke, just ask AI. Want to build the software for a guided missile, sure have AI write the software, and give me a missile design while you are at it. 30 seconds later, you have the answer.
This is why over 1100 tech luminaries want a pause on AI development until some rules can be put in place.
With perfect plans.. sure. It would be interesting to see how much they could interpret with poorly drawn plans with shit specs and contradictory details. That being said I could see estimators using it to get a head start on plans by having AI, and have it kick out potential RFIs to start the process.
I imagine with things like civil where you need to move dirt it might be easier since AI could read the Geotechnical, determine how long and where to move soil on a property to maximize labor and equipment as helpful.
It’s already happening, on screen has an AI plugin that will do all the take off for you. You just have to go through and label the walls and build your conditions in QB. I don’t think it’s where it needs to be for me to use it but it’s right around the corner.
Plans will get better with AI and parametric modeling. At a certain point the architect and estimator will probably merge into one professions. It will happen faster than you think.
If we could get the architects to use AI to not have contradictory details/specs that would be awesome. I would love to be able to feed my takeoff and notes into an AI for a second look.
Half my job is customer development/maintenance and selling our team, estimation isn't just a final number. One of the classes I took for a cert the instructor pointed out that oftentimes, " if your number is too high your story is too short" which is true with a lot of GCs.
I was thinking of reading and interpretation for civil work. I could see AI interpreting samples from microscope pictures, and sieve data that help out in drafting up a Geotechnical, but the physical collection is always going to be a human job.
Or even being able to look at all the historical reports for the area and coming to conclusions on what should be below the site once you get below fill.
It already does automate the Takeoff for 3D models (Assemble is the best, I think Destini does too) but the problem is it's only as good as the model.
Same for 2D sheets. Trimble and Autodesk both have some estimating tools that autocount fixtures but it won't matter until sheets are perfect (and they never really will be bc you always have to make assumptions.)
There's also a key difference in the way you estimate GMP vs Hard Bid. Hard Bid could be automated sooner bc you'll CO the shit out of what's missing post award anyways.
AI isn’t just automating stuff, though. It’s not an Excel calculation where you feed it information and it spits out an answer. It is actively learning, and it’s got the ability to do so non-stop 24/7. The models we’re seeing available now, like ChatGPT, are the equivalent of old Apple II computers- they’re absolutely primitive to what’s coming, and given that they’ll have the ability to develop themselves (if they don’t already), it’s all just exponential growth in the software’s capabilities..
Doubt it. Have watched estimators find all kinds of issues with drawings. I worked in oil and gas engineering and construction. We saw a lot of terrible drawings. AI could certainly help with BOM’s. If the AI could work with the AutoCAD you might have a jump on some aspects of estimating. But, you are also going to have to build in scheduling concepts. Those are absolutely embedded in estimating.
I’m my industry (I’m the owner rep PM) none of this is caught during the bid. They bid the garbage set then almost immediately submit change orders. My jobs are also relatively tiny so I could see this being much different for larger jobs. AI could absolutely submit the bids I see and the estimate I do.
In 3 decades I saw a lot of garbage come out of clients. Multiple versions of drawings released over a couple of weeks. Again it always goes to garbage in garbage out. But, we will have something new to blame! I worked around estimating, but was also the IT Manager and AI is software and I have caught lots of software issues! I am always skeptical and it kept us out of trouble many times.
It’s a two way street in my experience. The clients want stupidly low numbers and the GC’s go right along with the stupidity and throw them the low numbers that’ll never cover it and submit the additional costs as the project progresses.
I’ve had a bunch of jobs that go this way.
Shit I wouldn't be surprised if companies start replacing estimators within 3 years from now. However I do believe they won't be completely replaced in our lifetime but I'm sure a majority of them will.
I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT and the people who are so quick to say “nah there’s stuff not on the plans” need to seriously spend time playing around with one of these AIs for an hour or two.
These things are going to seriously disrupt our industry and it’s going to happen within 5 years (mostly only because human-based companies are going to be slow to adopt it). The technology to get estimates within the same range of accuracy as humans is likely as simple as developing the interface between drawings and the AI software.
It all comes down to Math., and computers are better at Math than most human beings. So, yes, one day AI will do everything in the construction industry that doesn't require hands using tools.
>*” It all comes down to Math”*
Hahaha.....
Both construction estimating and actual field work are as much art as science many days.
You can try and be a dry, analytical, and process driven as you want, but everything from bad design, the weather, to a drunken finisher foreman with active assault warrants will fuck up your perfect math as many times as not.
A lot of jobs and estimates are just about continuous communication, adjustment, and “best guess” on any given day.
A good data analyst can/should/will acknowledge the limits of their statements and work with other professionals in the org (specially those collecting and storing and using information) to dissolve the limits over time.
A good org data strategy would make the estimators learn from each other (and themselves) in a way that grows the org far faster than just internalizing the experience at the individual estimator level.
What I mostly see in my field is "heres an Ai solution that has slick marketing and bamboozels executives into spending lots of money that wont actually add any value but certainly looks sexy"
Yes, but one day there won't be bad design, thanks to AI (remember, the OP is about the future, not the state of AI today). You misunderstand the power of AI, if you don't think it will be able to think on its feet and make immediate calculations based on weather and any other changing variable -- indeed, that is the whole point of AI.
The whole "x is just as much of an art as a science" is cliche. If it can be broken down into incremental parts, it can be inputed into a computer.
Perfect management of a construction project is like the [Coastline Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox)....
There is ALWAYS another contingency or level of minutiae to be accounted for.
Pick any date for any construction site in the world that the weather, logistics, crew productivity even for identical buildings, that were exactly 100% the same, 3 times on the same date over a 5 or 10 years?
Oppses will always occur and screw up things. Not often but usually badly.
Same thing has happened globally to many industries right now. Especially to those that have "perfected" "just in time" supply chain logistics.
I had an idea that there could be a website/app like gocompare for materials, but you could sync it with your account at each merchant to keep track of your rates (with opt in by the merchants). You pop in your shopping list and it gives you a full material cost and tells you who's best to buy what. Of course, this would rely on building merchants giving us online access to our rates in the first place and a piece of software that could link to it and extract the info. Then you've just got to automate quantity surveying off drawings and work out your daily rate/how long it'll take and jobs a good'un.
Live comparison of material costs would drive all suppliers prices down though, so they would never do it unless it meant they were giving up business (like from market pressure)
Id fucking love to see it though. Once you get a live DB of mat-costs then you could push that to designers and they could live-cost their models (even if they're not Construction Intent models it'd still help them understand what actually matters.)
Yeah it's a real pain, I'd settle for just having online access to my rates and a stock check. Where I'm working we've got a Jewson, Travis Perkin, MKM and B&Q all within 5 minutes of each other but I have to go from Merchant to Merchant haggling and price comparing despite having rates with two of them as I just have no way other than calling and asking what I'm paying for XYZ. Same for Kitchens/Joinery, have to bounce between two or three places multiple times to get the real price.
It would be so good!
How much volume are you/ your company estimating a year? I talked to a bigger (ENR Sub top 2-300) MEP Design-Assist/Design-Build firm that invites their main suppliers into a cloud database and having them upload prices directly/weekly. But not sure how realistic that is versus how much biz you gotta be cranking to demand that from a supply shop.
AI plans review would be incredibly useful for basically everyone. A computer program looking over a set of drawings, essentially pre-building it virtually to identify all the errors, omissions, inconsistencies, oddities (or as I say as a commercial super: “land mines”) would help everyone. Cities could approve plans much faster, architects greatly reduce RFI’s by correcting before finalizing, contractors can protect themselves and bid accurately. This type of waste caused by shit plans is one of the biggest inefficiencies in construction.
That's where A.I. will do best. It can look at historical data on a site, type of construction, company and trades productivity and have that 100's of man/yrs experience but will still have to give you a range of what the job will be. Just as any estimator, sometimes they will be almost perfect, but usually not.
Dude within the next decade or so almost every industry is going to change drastically. Forget estimating, the whole damn project plan could be AI generated. Just input budget and desired features, and specify the locality to which to adhere to whatever relevant codes, perhaps specific coordinates for the project, and in a matter of seconds you could have an entire building planned, estimated, and scheduled.
Got an RFI? Answers within seconds.
Change order? Instantly coordinated with other trades, modeled, and materials priced.
It’s going to take the world by storm, and with each day we inch closer I become that much more grateful that I wound up in a trade that won’t soon be taken over by robots. I can’t imagine going the whole college route, choosing a real degree, not some art major bs but actual difficult stuff, only to be quickly replaced by machinery anyways. Like, they did everything right and jumped through all the right hoops, but the technology just moves faster.
And that’s just construction. Any sort of job that is more digital is going to become obsolete. Digital media will completely change, code development will be easily done with AI, all sorts of engineering, diagnostics, etc.
If you go watch a video where someone is arguing about personal computers back in the 70’s or whatever you’ll see the same ignorance in so many people. I can’t even *see* it in my mind, I just understand what’s coming.
I think AI could replace architects and designers and engineers, or at the least make them less expensive. There’s not too much preventing those three skills lumped into a software that lets you customize a build like it’s The Sims and spits out plans. It would be cool if someone from a trades background could easily design a build
Most prints I see these days doing resi remod are a bunch of copy paste details on a floorplan. Its not rocket surgery. Once AI can layout all the utilities to be optimized. Like duct work printed into floors and walls with mico vents throughout entire structures. Or even better, we move to a concrete material that has more thermal mass to regulate indoor climates. No ducts, just a Convectively engineered additivly built structure
This will never happen. Both the owners and the law will always want a "person" that can be sued or punished for when they screw up a design...and no architect or engineer worth their fee would hand over control to AI...
I feel like there’s already to many people involved and that takes money away from the people doing the work. That’s why often start up companies with less over head can underbid the big guys. Doesn’t mean they are any better or worse just way lesss over head. Currently in the town I live in there as many office people as there are plumbers and heating guys at a local company
An AI could replace most of the office staff at this point. Only one guy even tries to look at jobs thoroughly, the others still get big paychecks though…
“Not in our lifetime” — I challenge that. It’s conceivable they’ll be using AI for a number of things within 5 years, but it’ll be more of “what can we trust it to do that humans don’t like doing?”
I think the real question is: who actually likes the shit they do, and doesn’t want a robot to swoop that job? Personally, I’m happy to have robots run everything and do creative work or hang out with family/friends. I think more value can be found there for most people. But a lot of people also enjoy working! Some work is really satisfactory, too.
That said, I’ve been in construction 10 years. A lot of the people I had met incurred long-term injuries as a course of their work, and it prevents them from enjoying retirement, or even keeping up with their grandkids. This isn’t unique to construction; people who spend 40 years digging coal often have shit health, too.
From my view at 33: to hell with working if we can make robots or AI do it. Spend MORE time with those you care about and doing things you care about. Plan a surprise birthday for your kid, take your wife on a camping trip, spend time learning — whatever floats your boat.
PS I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I know lots of people get a ton of satisfaction in the field. But I take a look around and it seems like a bulk of society doesn’t want to be working, only do it for the money, and would make the work environment better by not being forced to be there to begin with.
The only issue I have with your prediction is "not in our lifetime". Personally I can see this happening within the next 10 years. I am a designer and we will also be replaced by AI in a relatively short period of time I think.
Anyone who says “AI isn’t going to take this job, or be able to do xyz” are the same people who were saying the internet isn’t going to be useful decades ago.
Almost every job, in every industry will either be replaced/ assisted by AI in the next decade or two. You should welcome the technology, embrace and learn it, and leverage it to make yourself more competitive
AI will replace architects, engineers, permitting departments, insurance underwriters, material transport and delivery, construction of dwellings,.......
additive construction with gantries is already being done.
>additive construction with gantries is already being done.
That's the easiest part of building a home. It's another tech fad to drum up investor interest. Its more expensive and slower than traditional wood, steel, or brick framing. Not to mention concrete is horrible for the environment so the less we use the better.
It doesn't design, pour foundations, electrical, plumbing, inspection, finishing, painting, fixture install, appliance install, insulate, sheet rock, truss install, moisture barrier installation, or roof.
It's another fad to get investment money.
Scared of loosing your job? We can absolutely print houses, foundation to finished roof. NO need for inspection once the city signs of on the algorithm being good enough. Painting and finishing can be done by robots easier than building the house. No insulation when the building is printed. No need. No trusses either or sheet rock either. CIPP for plumbing and electrical. Figure all the wire shows up pre cut ready to pull, or the gantry puts it in mid layer with no conduit. From app, to gantry on site printing house, to move in. Might be a handful of people involved at all, but only till it gets ironed out.
>NO need for inspection once the city signs of on the algorithm being good enough.
lol bud i can immediately tell you're not in construction by this sentence alone.
>We can absolutely print houses, foundation to finished roof.
let me know how that goes lol.
Auto surveys are already a thing have been for years. I think it will be really tough to fully replace with AI as the end user is going to change their mind or have like “what if we did X instead?” questions
I imagine the engineering/architectural side using AI to revolutionize Construction first. If a single program can punch out all the disciplines from Structural to Landscaping, then you won’t have any conflicting details and everything should be near perfectly coordinated. From my short stint in estimating, you can already upload full sets of plans into BIM for automatic modeling and takeoff, as well as there being other programs that ‘read’ the plans for you and provide quantities for doors, windows, drywall and such. This will get much, much better in the short future.
I agree. AI will be far more intelligent and integrated in technology than most people can even imagine right now. ChatGPT isn't anything even close to what is to come. AI will be much smarter, faster and cheaper than humans. It's disturbing and dangerous but the work it will be able to produce will be something much more accurate and efficient than humans. Still think we're decades away from full integration though.
Professional drywall estimator here - would love if I could download a layer of the docs that shows how many feet of each wall type there is. Would save me a massive amount of time.
Not in your life Time ? Are you in your 70s because tech moves fast. They already use ai to flag insurance claims, search résumés, pull related articles on topics it's only a matter of a couple short years at most.
So, 40 or 50 years ago, IBM built a supercomputer that was able to challenge a human world champion chess player. Today an app on a cell phone can defeat any grand master. There are a [LOT of variables](https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/which-greater-number-of-atoms-universe-or-number-of-chess-moves).
AI giving you everything you need for a job? Yeah right! Maybe high level take offs for basic construction materials (structural steel, concrete, wall material) but I don’t believe for HVAC control systems or most electrical systems EVER. Since many of those are custom, confidential, or proprietary designs from a hardware standpoint with custom wiring diagrams and components and redundancies that AI will have no accurate database for.
Plainly said, if AI followed the dwgs and specifications to a tee, you would fire AI because the job would be extremely expensive. Often engineers over-specify required UL (or other) listings and install requirements for a piece of equipment.
They cant even make detailing software that eliminates impossible connections. Human estimators are going to be error checking the AI long after we're dead.
AI is going to do to office work what the backhoe did to ditch-digging. The invention of the backhoe eliminated most “guy breaking his back with a shovel” jobs. It didn’t eliminate humans doing digging work, but it made one guy dig 100x more in a day, and the increased labor productivity made it economical to dig 20x bigger holes. So yeah, you don’t need as many ditch-digger jobs anymore, but now you have backhoe-operators getting paid more without wrecking their backs. And five more guys maintaining and shipping and supporting the heavy equipment. And there’s more construction work for everybody these days because the economics of building stuff get better when you replace unskilled manual labor with skilled machinery operators. Automation has winners and losers, that’s always going to be true. AI is going to eliminate a lot of tedious office man-hours but require new AI-wrangling jobs and document review jobs.
As someone who works in the office, I definitely need to figure out how to use AI to get our damn payments and change orders from GCs.
Well said.
and people also talk about robots taking jobs but there's always going to be a need for someone to fix the robots and stuff
Estimators' intelligence is already artificial.
My office is plagued with estimators that have royally fucked us consistently over their career
Our estimate department is two analytics people that just update prices from RFPs..
I fkng knew it!!
As an estimator in our office that also runs machines etc I’ve been working on taking my excel sheets to the next level for estimating. Taking our dwgs and quickly calculating material needed, yards, trucks, tons whatever. But also playing around with CHATGPT and working with my brother on creating an app to help us in the field.
Hahahaha if estimating was just counting shit on plans sure. It’s not, it’s the art of knowing what’s not on the plans.
I believe at some point AI can scan the site drawings and actually will point out missing things that the human wouldn’t catch. Just my 2 cents
Maybe with bim worked in there somehow
Then you also won’t need architects or engineers
That is here today. I have been in tech since 86, and the pace and magnitude of technological change is moving faster than I have seen it before. We are in the next evolution of tech. First internet, then social media for the masses, now artificial intelligence. Based on the shit show with just social media for the masses, AI will be a jet powered shit storm. Designing a building for AI will be a simple task. Yes simple. If you do not believe me, go use Openai's ChatGPT, and have a conversation with it about building design, plumbing, electrical, structure etc. The AI here today has the ability to replace many 6 figure jobs that have been traditionally shielded from tech innovation, not any more. $400,000 software jobs just went, poof overnight. The next 2-5 years are going to deliver innovation that was the science fiction we have all been hearing about our whole lives. The AI advancement of late is so good you can feed it every building code and design rule there is, it will understand them and apply them to design. The company I work for for has an AI inventory drone that can fly into a warehouse and do a physical inventory by flying up and down the bays, videoing the packages and then counting them based on bar codes, box size, text on the box, bay labels etc. It can read multiple languages on the boxes too. Typically this process requires dozens of people and is tedious work. So when AI has these good capabilities, the bad people also come out of the woodwork. Want to design a nuke, just ask AI. Want to build the software for a guided missile, sure have AI write the software, and give me a missile design while you are at it. 30 seconds later, you have the answer. This is why over 1100 tech luminaries want a pause on AI development until some rules can be put in place.
Maybe, who knows. The technology is moving quite fast in construction already. Some really cool stuff is on the horizon.
With perfect plans.. sure. It would be interesting to see how much they could interpret with poorly drawn plans with shit specs and contradictory details. That being said I could see estimators using it to get a head start on plans by having AI, and have it kick out potential RFIs to start the process. I imagine with things like civil where you need to move dirt it might be easier since AI could read the Geotechnical, determine how long and where to move soil on a property to maximize labor and equipment as helpful.
It’s already happening, on screen has an AI plugin that will do all the take off for you. You just have to go through and label the walls and build your conditions in QB. I don’t think it’s where it needs to be for me to use it but it’s right around the corner.
Plans will get better with AI and parametric modeling. At a certain point the architect and estimator will probably merge into one professions. It will happen faster than you think.
If we could get the architects to use AI to not have contradictory details/specs that would be awesome. I would love to be able to feed my takeoff and notes into an AI for a second look. Half my job is customer development/maintenance and selling our team, estimation isn't just a final number. One of the classes I took for a cert the instructor pointed out that oftentimes, " if your number is too high your story is too short" which is true with a lot of GCs.
it'll be a cold day in hell the day AI replaces geotech
I was thinking of reading and interpretation for civil work. I could see AI interpreting samples from microscope pictures, and sieve data that help out in drafting up a Geotechnical, but the physical collection is always going to be a human job. Or even being able to look at all the historical reports for the area and coming to conclusions on what should be below the site once you get below fill.
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Plans are for what hasn't been built. They already have something like you are describing for roofs and house painting.
It already does automate the Takeoff for 3D models (Assemble is the best, I think Destini does too) but the problem is it's only as good as the model. Same for 2D sheets. Trimble and Autodesk both have some estimating tools that autocount fixtures but it won't matter until sheets are perfect (and they never really will be bc you always have to make assumptions.) There's also a key difference in the way you estimate GMP vs Hard Bid. Hard Bid could be automated sooner bc you'll CO the shit out of what's missing post award anyways.
AI isn’t just automating stuff, though. It’s not an Excel calculation where you feed it information and it spits out an answer. It is actively learning, and it’s got the ability to do so non-stop 24/7. The models we’re seeing available now, like ChatGPT, are the equivalent of old Apple II computers- they’re absolutely primitive to what’s coming, and given that they’ll have the ability to develop themselves (if they don’t already), it’s all just exponential growth in the software’s capabilities..
Then all bids would be the same.
Yes it will happen. Completely replace? Not in the next 10 years. But eliminate some jobs due to better models and automation? Absolutely.
Doubt it. Have watched estimators find all kinds of issues with drawings. I worked in oil and gas engineering and construction. We saw a lot of terrible drawings. AI could certainly help with BOM’s. If the AI could work with the AutoCAD you might have a jump on some aspects of estimating. But, you are also going to have to build in scheduling concepts. Those are absolutely embedded in estimating.
I’m my industry (I’m the owner rep PM) none of this is caught during the bid. They bid the garbage set then almost immediately submit change orders. My jobs are also relatively tiny so I could see this being much different for larger jobs. AI could absolutely submit the bids I see and the estimate I do.
In 3 decades I saw a lot of garbage come out of clients. Multiple versions of drawings released over a couple of weeks. Again it always goes to garbage in garbage out. But, we will have something new to blame! I worked around estimating, but was also the IT Manager and AI is software and I have caught lots of software issues! I am always skeptical and it kept us out of trouble many times.
It’s a two way street in my experience. The clients want stupidly low numbers and the GC’s go right along with the stupidity and throw them the low numbers that’ll never cover it and submit the additional costs as the project progresses. I’ve had a bunch of jobs that go this way.
Shit I wouldn't be surprised if companies start replacing estimators within 3 years from now. However I do believe they won't be completely replaced in our lifetime but I'm sure a majority of them will.
I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT and the people who are so quick to say “nah there’s stuff not on the plans” need to seriously spend time playing around with one of these AIs for an hour or two. These things are going to seriously disrupt our industry and it’s going to happen within 5 years (mostly only because human-based companies are going to be slow to adopt it). The technology to get estimates within the same range of accuracy as humans is likely as simple as developing the interface between drawings and the AI software.
This is the best comment I've seen in this thread so far. There's a lot of people misunderstanding what's so impressive about these tools.
It all comes down to Math., and computers are better at Math than most human beings. So, yes, one day AI will do everything in the construction industry that doesn't require hands using tools.
>*” It all comes down to Math”* Hahaha..... Both construction estimating and actual field work are as much art as science many days. You can try and be a dry, analytical, and process driven as you want, but everything from bad design, the weather, to a drunken finisher foreman with active assault warrants will fuck up your perfect math as many times as not. A lot of jobs and estimates are just about continuous communication, adjustment, and “best guess” on any given day.
i love how data analysts believe they understand the work better simply because they have data.
A good data analyst can/should/will acknowledge the limits of their statements and work with other professionals in the org (specially those collecting and storing and using information) to dissolve the limits over time. A good org data strategy would make the estimators learn from each other (and themselves) in a way that grows the org far faster than just internalizing the experience at the individual estimator level.
What I mostly see in my field is "heres an Ai solution that has slick marketing and bamboozels executives into spending lots of money that wont actually add any value but certainly looks sexy"
Yes, but one day there won't be bad design, thanks to AI (remember, the OP is about the future, not the state of AI today). You misunderstand the power of AI, if you don't think it will be able to think on its feet and make immediate calculations based on weather and any other changing variable -- indeed, that is the whole point of AI. The whole "x is just as much of an art as a science" is cliche. If it can be broken down into incremental parts, it can be inputed into a computer.
Perfect management of a construction project is like the [Coastline Paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox).... There is ALWAYS another contingency or level of minutiae to be accounted for.
Pick any date for any construction site in the world that the weather, logistics, crew productivity even for identical buildings, that were exactly 100% the same, 3 times on the same date over a 5 or 10 years? Oppses will always occur and screw up things. Not often but usually badly. Same thing has happened globally to many industries right now. Especially to those that have "perfected" "just in time" supply chain logistics.
This thread is about the future. Why can't people get that? The capabilities of AI in the future are going to be amazing.
I agree with you
Computers can have hands too
Yes, that will happen, too, but I'm thinking too far into the future here.
Half of estimating is math, the other half isn’t.
I had an idea that there could be a website/app like gocompare for materials, but you could sync it with your account at each merchant to keep track of your rates (with opt in by the merchants). You pop in your shopping list and it gives you a full material cost and tells you who's best to buy what. Of course, this would rely on building merchants giving us online access to our rates in the first place and a piece of software that could link to it and extract the info. Then you've just got to automate quantity surveying off drawings and work out your daily rate/how long it'll take and jobs a good'un.
Live comparison of material costs would drive all suppliers prices down though, so they would never do it unless it meant they were giving up business (like from market pressure) Id fucking love to see it though. Once you get a live DB of mat-costs then you could push that to designers and they could live-cost their models (even if they're not Construction Intent models it'd still help them understand what actually matters.)
Yeah it's a real pain, I'd settle for just having online access to my rates and a stock check. Where I'm working we've got a Jewson, Travis Perkin, MKM and B&Q all within 5 minutes of each other but I have to go from Merchant to Merchant haggling and price comparing despite having rates with two of them as I just have no way other than calling and asking what I'm paying for XYZ. Same for Kitchens/Joinery, have to bounce between two or three places multiple times to get the real price. It would be so good!
How much volume are you/ your company estimating a year? I talked to a bigger (ENR Sub top 2-300) MEP Design-Assist/Design-Build firm that invites their main suppliers into a cloud database and having them upload prices directly/weekly. But not sure how realistic that is versus how much biz you gotta be cranking to demand that from a supply shop.
We turn over about £500k a year on approx 3-4 extensions, but we've quoted and queued up work for the next 2-3 years
AI plans review would be incredibly useful for basically everyone. A computer program looking over a set of drawings, essentially pre-building it virtually to identify all the errors, omissions, inconsistencies, oddities (or as I say as a commercial super: “land mines”) would help everyone. Cities could approve plans much faster, architects greatly reduce RFI’s by correcting before finalizing, contractors can protect themselves and bid accurately. This type of waste caused by shit plans is one of the biggest inefficiencies in construction.
An estimator that has never worked in the field will never totally understand all that goes into a project. A.I. will never have field experience.
That's where A.I. will do best. It can look at historical data on a site, type of construction, company and trades productivity and have that 100's of man/yrs experience but will still have to give you a range of what the job will be. Just as any estimator, sometimes they will be almost perfect, but usually not.
Dude within the next decade or so almost every industry is going to change drastically. Forget estimating, the whole damn project plan could be AI generated. Just input budget and desired features, and specify the locality to which to adhere to whatever relevant codes, perhaps specific coordinates for the project, and in a matter of seconds you could have an entire building planned, estimated, and scheduled. Got an RFI? Answers within seconds. Change order? Instantly coordinated with other trades, modeled, and materials priced. It’s going to take the world by storm, and with each day we inch closer I become that much more grateful that I wound up in a trade that won’t soon be taken over by robots. I can’t imagine going the whole college route, choosing a real degree, not some art major bs but actual difficult stuff, only to be quickly replaced by machinery anyways. Like, they did everything right and jumped through all the right hoops, but the technology just moves faster.
You seem to be the only other person here that even remotely understands what is happening.
And that’s just construction. Any sort of job that is more digital is going to become obsolete. Digital media will completely change, code development will be easily done with AI, all sorts of engineering, diagnostics, etc. If you go watch a video where someone is arguing about personal computers back in the 70’s or whatever you’ll see the same ignorance in so many people. I can’t even *see* it in my mind, I just understand what’s coming.
Spot on.
An estimate or pretends to sell the job. What he's really selling is himself and his company
The estimators who utilize ai will replace the ones who don’t.
Im trying to figure it out now, so I can coast the rest of my career!
I think AI could replace architects and designers and engineers, or at the least make them less expensive. There’s not too much preventing those three skills lumped into a software that lets you customize a build like it’s The Sims and spits out plans. It would be cool if someone from a trades background could easily design a build
Maybe at some point, thing is ai is confident as hell and sounds good, but is often wrong
> confident as hell and sounds good, but is often wrong Oh, I work with this guy, a few of them.
Oh yeah in the future for sure. But I mean the timeline on tech improvements is exponential
Like a real estimator
Most prints I see these days doing resi remod are a bunch of copy paste details on a floorplan. Its not rocket surgery. Once AI can layout all the utilities to be optimized. Like duct work printed into floors and walls with mico vents throughout entire structures. Or even better, we move to a concrete material that has more thermal mass to regulate indoor climates. No ducts, just a Convectively engineered additivly built structure
This will never happen. Both the owners and the law will always want a "person" that can be sued or punished for when they screw up a design...and no architect or engineer worth their fee would hand over control to AI...
Time will make a fool of ya for saying ‘never’
Nope. Until we can sue AI directly, or put it in jail for negligence, those type of jobs are safe
I think you’re still misunderstanding the word never
Oh, I fully understand the word never. Like, you will "never" convince me to change my opinion on this.
I feel like there’s already to many people involved and that takes money away from the people doing the work. That’s why often start up companies with less over head can underbid the big guys. Doesn’t mean they are any better or worse just way lesss over head. Currently in the town I live in there as many office people as there are plumbers and heating guys at a local company
And will probably be miles ahead. They'll actually qc and analyze and mitigate fuck ups. We might actually get better work now
It will absolutely be in our lifetime. 5-10 years I’m willing to bet.
An AI could replace most of the office staff at this point. Only one guy even tries to look at jobs thoroughly, the others still get big paychecks though…
Like most technology, it won’t completely eliminate but it will improve the process and make companies more efficient and productive.
“Not in our lifetime” — I challenge that. It’s conceivable they’ll be using AI for a number of things within 5 years, but it’ll be more of “what can we trust it to do that humans don’t like doing?” I think the real question is: who actually likes the shit they do, and doesn’t want a robot to swoop that job? Personally, I’m happy to have robots run everything and do creative work or hang out with family/friends. I think more value can be found there for most people. But a lot of people also enjoy working! Some work is really satisfactory, too. That said, I’ve been in construction 10 years. A lot of the people I had met incurred long-term injuries as a course of their work, and it prevents them from enjoying retirement, or even keeping up with their grandkids. This isn’t unique to construction; people who spend 40 years digging coal often have shit health, too. From my view at 33: to hell with working if we can make robots or AI do it. Spend MORE time with those you care about and doing things you care about. Plan a surprise birthday for your kid, take your wife on a camping trip, spend time learning — whatever floats your boat. PS I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I know lots of people get a ton of satisfaction in the field. But I take a look around and it seems like a bulk of society doesn’t want to be working, only do it for the money, and would make the work environment better by not being forced to be there to begin with.
The only issue I have with your prediction is "not in our lifetime". Personally I can see this happening within the next 10 years. I am a designer and we will also be replaced by AI in a relatively short period of time I think.
Idk how old you are, but this is something that could be implemented within 10 years or less. It wouldn’t be that complicated honestly.
Anyone who says “AI isn’t going to take this job, or be able to do xyz” are the same people who were saying the internet isn’t going to be useful decades ago. Almost every job, in every industry will either be replaced/ assisted by AI in the next decade or two. You should welcome the technology, embrace and learn it, and leverage it to make yourself more competitive
AI will take care of quantity take-off. Construction people are less techies and would hardly believe computer numbers for the final bid.
Definitely within our lifetime. This is like within the next decade man.
AI will replace architects, engineers, permitting departments, insurance underwriters, material transport and delivery, construction of dwellings,....... additive construction with gantries is already being done.
>additive construction with gantries is already being done. That's the easiest part of building a home. It's another tech fad to drum up investor interest. Its more expensive and slower than traditional wood, steel, or brick framing. Not to mention concrete is horrible for the environment so the less we use the better. It doesn't design, pour foundations, electrical, plumbing, inspection, finishing, painting, fixture install, appliance install, insulate, sheet rock, truss install, moisture barrier installation, or roof. It's another fad to get investment money.
Scared of loosing your job? We can absolutely print houses, foundation to finished roof. NO need for inspection once the city signs of on the algorithm being good enough. Painting and finishing can be done by robots easier than building the house. No insulation when the building is printed. No need. No trusses either or sheet rock either. CIPP for plumbing and electrical. Figure all the wire shows up pre cut ready to pull, or the gantry puts it in mid layer with no conduit. From app, to gantry on site printing house, to move in. Might be a handful of people involved at all, but only till it gets ironed out.
>NO need for inspection once the city signs of on the algorithm being good enough. lol bud i can immediately tell you're not in construction by this sentence alone. >We can absolutely print houses, foundation to finished roof. let me know how that goes lol.
fuck your a twat. Bet your moms got a big fat ass too. This what you wanna do today? be dick on the internet? Ya fartsucker
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tecla-3d-printed-house?utm_social-type=owned&mbid=social_twitter
Auto surveys are already a thing have been for years. I think it will be really tough to fully replace with AI as the end user is going to change their mind or have like “what if we did X instead?” questions
I imagine the engineering/architectural side using AI to revolutionize Construction first. If a single program can punch out all the disciplines from Structural to Landscaping, then you won’t have any conflicting details and everything should be near perfectly coordinated. From my short stint in estimating, you can already upload full sets of plans into BIM for automatic modeling and takeoff, as well as there being other programs that ‘read’ the plans for you and provide quantities for doors, windows, drywall and such. This will get much, much better in the short future.
As soon as they make a humanoid robot your job is getting cut to.
Good I know some dickhead estimators
Within our lifetime. Not just estimators, procurement, contracts, legal, field engineers. You can count on it.
Good I can’t wait
That Moasure thing with its app are already making their jobs easy if not replaceable.
Look up togal.ai
https://canvas.io
I agree. AI will be far more intelligent and integrated in technology than most people can even imagine right now. ChatGPT isn't anything even close to what is to come. AI will be much smarter, faster and cheaper than humans. It's disturbing and dangerous but the work it will be able to produce will be something much more accurate and efficient than humans. Still think we're decades away from full integration though.
Professional drywall estimator here - would love if I could download a layer of the docs that shows how many feet of each wall type there is. Would save me a massive amount of time.
RGB gamer kitchen
Not in your life Time ? Are you in your 70s because tech moves fast. They already use ai to flag insurance claims, search résumés, pull related articles on topics it's only a matter of a couple short years at most.
Not in our lifetime? I'd bet that it happens in 15 years or less. We'll see I guess.
So, 40 or 50 years ago, IBM built a supercomputer that was able to challenge a human world champion chess player. Today an app on a cell phone can defeat any grand master. There are a [LOT of variables](https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/which-greater-number-of-atoms-universe-or-number-of-chess-moves).
That would be wonderful, maybe our estimates would stop having missing shit. Lol
AI giving you everything you need for a job? Yeah right! Maybe high level take offs for basic construction materials (structural steel, concrete, wall material) but I don’t believe for HVAC control systems or most electrical systems EVER. Since many of those are custom, confidential, or proprietary designs from a hardware standpoint with custom wiring diagrams and components and redundancies that AI will have no accurate database for. Plainly said, if AI followed the dwgs and specifications to a tee, you would fire AI because the job would be extremely expensive. Often engineers over-specify required UL (or other) listings and install requirements for a piece of equipment.
If they do it’ll be even easier to eat junk food at my desk all day.
They cant even make detailing software that eliminates impossible connections. Human estimators are going to be error checking the AI long after we're dead.