AI and Engineering Design

[DennisCA]

I just get more skeptical and irritated about AI every day personally.

 

[skotl]

I just get more skeptical and irritated about AI every day personally.

Agree - it's a useful tool but it's impact (other than costing a lot of companies a lot of money) is overblown

 

[Erie Fred]

Related to that, in the mid 2010s I worked for a business that had way more vision than the regulators would allow. We used AI to evaluate an individual's bank account (only if they allowed us to do so) to generate a risk profile that would effectively set their personal limit for online gambling.

That meant that we could evaluate someone who was spending (say) £400 a month out of a £4,000 income across multiple betting sites (prob. low risk) vs someone who spent £200 a month from a £700 pension (prob. high risk).

But the FCA & Gambling Commission at the time wouldn't let us bring this to market because AI is non-deterministic, and doesn't provide a decision tree to back up an assessment.

I and the company I worked for really believed that this would be a social benefit, but regulation didn't understand it then and still doesn't.

Sounds like the AI could not "show your work".

I think the regulators where right in this case.
Condemning someone without justifiable cause is not right.

If you were "blacklisted" by the AI program, how could you defend yourself and plead your case for re-instatement ?

 

[Munkul]

Sounds like the AI could not "show your work".

I think the regulators where right in this case.
Condemning someone without justifiable cause is not right.

If you were "blacklisted" by the AI program, how could you defend yourself and plead your case for re-instatement ?

these days I guess you could make the AI show a decision tree.

We've done decision tree records for sort-and-segregate software before.

 

[Bobtail4x4]

As an architect, I know that a pencil drawing is a much better discussion tool with clients than a CAD printout. In the workshop, being able to divide fractional inches mentally means I can complete woodwork tasks in my head that friends who can only do metric have to get their phones out to calculate. We are making ourselves stupid by treating technologies as ends in themselves, rather than as means to remove drudgery - to perform repetitive, mundane or dangerous tasks for us. However, the way 'AI' is being discussed encourages the human to remove oversight totally. The output is not checked. The input is not checked. The reason for using it is not checked. The ecolopgical impacts are not checked. The emotional impacts are not checked. The societal impacts are not checked. It's a looming disaster.

An amusing adjunct is the Firefox addon 'Slop Evader'.

you would be surprised how many architects or plan drawers design things that cannot be built, stairs cutting across roofs, roofs with no support etc, AI wont pick it up,

 

[Nomad]

I got sent a link yesterday (all in the best possible taste - as Kenny Everett would say) headlines were “German police issue warning after AI images of officers appeared on social media”

Use your imagination or look on the daily mail site for article 15395039 ( the fact it’s in the daily mail says says something)

Morale is: don’t believe everything AI tells you.

 

[MattF]

Morale is: don’t believe everything AI tells you.

AI is merely the tool, in these types of instance. It's the mindset & purpose of the folk using that tool which I find concerning.

 

[Dragnet]

you would be surprised how many architects or plan drawers design things that cannot be built, stairs cutting across roofs, roofs with no support etc, AI wont pick it up,

I'm not surprised at all. Architects have a bad name because title does not mean competence. Many have no idea of construction techniques. I've had to deal with many drawings of the type you describe, usually because 'standard' details from some manufacturer of a particular product are simply mashed together. It's not design, and it's not even assembly. Certainly it doesn't make good buildings fit for our citizenry, or fine places to live people can be proud of.

 

[Dragnet]

AI is merely the tool, in these types of instance. It's the mindset & purpose of the folk using that tool which I find concerning.

I don't think this contention works with AI. Something like a welder is a tool. A better one may make it easier for a lesser-skilled operator to make a successful outcome. A car allows easier travel over long distances, but has unforeseen effects of urban sprawl and loneliness. However, both these require consistent application and input from the operator. Arbitrary Idiocy requires nothing more than a few lines of text for the output to be generated, so the operator can be effectively bypassed. There is no need for effort or application yet a result is still generated. It requires a very principled manager to prevent this worthless slop from getting into anything where it will affect reality.