Future of Engineering Jobs & Automation 9

[StrucPEng]

Hello All,

I wanted to start a discussion on the future of the engineering profession in light of continued improvements in AI and automation. There is a lot of talk about many jobs being "outsourced" to AI or that can be completed with much less expense than before. A few that come to mind are truck drivers, customer service, and even radiology. It is a topic I have been interested in lately and wanted to get everyone opinion on how they see the engineering profession evolving in light of this. A few initial questions would be:

- What kind of engineering processes can and can not be completed with AI or could be automated in the future?
- Which branches of engineering are most/least vulnerable to automation? (Structural/Mechanical/ etc.)
- What does automation mean for licensing and duty to the public?
- Will there be less of a demand licensed engineers used mostly for confirmation of computer created designs?
- Do you see the value of an engineer increasing or decreasing in light of automation? Less

I am interested to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Thanks for reading!

Best,

Matt Soda, P.Eng

 

[IRstuff]

Hah, not chains, but laser rangefinders...

On the ground, you can get centimeter-level or lower, uncertainty, not something that's achievable, yet, with satellite data, considering the best commercial imagery available only has about 30-cm resolution.

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[GregLocock]

Locally you might get that good, but globally the error was about the size of a football, using standard techniques. One of your main problems is baselines. In the UK that is solved by using trig points, which span the mainland in some detail. They are accurate, among themselves, to about 3mm.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[cranky108]

Sort of related, but despite the location tools used by contractors, we still have people dig into underground power lines. And the lines haven't moved very much, but the maps seem to sometimes show that the lines have moved.

So what is the deal with the survey?

 

[IRstuff]

Well, that presumes that the lines were laid when high quality/precision location data existed, and that the contractors didn't fudge. In any large city, most pipes and whatnot predate even GPS itself.

And, yes, things could possibly have moved. The constant extraction of water from the water table has drastically changed the underground landscape in many cities. Sinkholes are symptomatic of huge amounts of dirt being moved elsewhere.

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[CWB1]

I could understand the need for manually surveying when issues arise and accuracy within a foot or so is necessary, but I've never understood the logic of using metes and bounds vs the global grid.

As for the location of buried infrastructure, I've lived in several towns and smaller cities that kept no records of their infrastructure's location. Is the sewer in front or behind my house?.....Let me send someone out to try and locate a manhole or probe the ground. Never attribute to malice....

 

[IRstuff]

Until the about 1500 years ago, cities grew by simply building on top of existing infrastructure, so the idea of needing to find sewer lines for replacement or to avoid them to place something else didn't make sense. It's only in the satellite age that we have needed a global grid, but almost all of our infrastructure is based on datums established well before GPS and the WGS84 geoid existed. Just about any country that's needed surveying has tended to create their own datums to make life easier for themselves, but that makes it difficult to figure out where everything is, relative to global coordinates. I still see references to NAD27.

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[cranky108]

I recall a story from another engineer who was operating an ROV in a sewer line, and came across a ground rod through the sewer pipe. My only comment was that we had a good ground connection.

However, the GPS thing dos not work in underground spaces. The fact that surface features has changed does not make identifying locations easier.

Then there is the locations of old mines, pipes, and foundations that make things difficult. And yes we have left foundations out their for someone to find.

 

[lacajun]

That being said, in my field (Instrumentation and Control), there has been a steady decline in the quality and quantity of engineer on the PE level. More and more is being left to the contractor and systems integrator. This is combination with specifications which are very vague usually does not go smoothly.

I lead with my experience and PE only to learn I'm competing with contractors or SIs, who have familiarity thus are hard to work around or with. Those are interesting dynamics to watch, in my opinion.

I don't think automation is going to have a bad effect on engineering. I think it has and will have a positive effect.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
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