• Write on your own where/how you think AI is currently being used, or might be used in the near future in your field, whether academically while studying or in the workplace (1 point)
  • I think right now undergrads are using AI to ask questions about concepts from courses, to do homework assignments, solve midterm questions if answer keys aren’t provided, correct and write code, and give advice on how to make particular decisions in projects.
  • In the workplace, I honestly am not sure how AI would be used in engineering b/c I am not familiar with how day to day work is completed in my field.
• Use one of the AI tools to see what it will suggest are ways AI will be used in your field. Cite the AI with the link and your prompt (1 point)
  • This was my prompt to Chat GPT: “how will AI change the engineering workplace? Both in day to day and in big picture things. Please note pros and cons”
  • This is a summary of its response:
    • Pros:
      • Faster completion of routine work
      • Better decision support (as in the Ai is able to look at data and suggest conclusions to engineers)
      • Rapid prototyping
      • Lower barrier for learning
    • Cons:
      • Over reliance
      • Skill atrophy (as AI takes over more and more tasks, we risk the possibility of engineers losing the ability to do the fundamentals)
      • Tool fatigue (with so many AI tools, you can actually cause cognitive overload instead of reducing load)
• Interview a person in the profession that you know – an older sibling, family friend, etc. If you cannot think of someone you know, you could interview an additional professor who works a lot in the field (some part-time professors are like that) or interview someone from the career center. Again, you can audio-record or take notes, and provide a summary. (2 points)
  • I interviewed two people:
    • Maie Eleskanderani, a computer engineer who works at Orange
    • Sara El Amawy, an architectural and structual engineer who last worked for Alpine
  • I asked both engineers to give their thoughts on Chat GPT’s responses and let the conversation flow from there.
• Maie’s interview:
  • Maie believes that AI is already changing the industry as we speak, she spoke about how AI tools have changed her personal workflows at Orange in great length. She agreed that AI has made routine work much easier to complete, allowing her to use her experience and expertise in the field to make more high level decisions that are more concerned with the big-picture rather than the small details. Maie explained that she herself has already developed multiple AI tools used internally at Orange that analyze massive amounts of data very quickly, instead of having to assign a team to comb the data themselves and come away with takeaways (which she said would normally take two to three weeks per month). She noted, as possible cons, how AI can sometimes be trained on improper data, or not enough data, which is hard to check if you yourself were not involved in the making of the tool. She argued that for engineers to properly utilize AI, they have to understand that all it is is an enabler. It makes your life easier, but it does not replace your brain and your ability to think critically. To her, engineers are always going to be more capable of making connections between projects and ideas as long as education keeps up with the development of AI. She thinks in the near future, the job expectations of an engineer will change in nature to be more intertwined with business.
• Sara’s interview:
  • Similar to Maie’s beliefs, Sara felt that in the fields of construction and architecture AI could be very useful in dealing with donkey work that is not exactly the best use of her time and skills as an engineer. In her field, this donkey work is understanding and organizing the various different zoning and building standards that are unique for each and every project. With AI, Sara believes that this workflow will be streamlined. She believes that AI is still far away from making major differences in her particular field of work b/c AI struggles with interpreting and dealing with space. She talked at length about the latest Nanobanana tool from google, and how that AI tool, although bleeding edge in many regards, still lacks in the very crucial area of space interpretation. Furthermore, she feels that AI will never be able to match the human creativity and authenticity in building design that exists now. ANother concern she had with the development of AI in her industry is that the field of architectyure and construction is very avere to change b/c of how strict their regulations are as it pertains to safety. The precision and reliability these tools have to have to be used on buildings which will house people is very high, and she thinks it will be quite a while before the industry begins to trust such tools with important work.
• Provide your reflection: were you surprised? What about your findings excite or scare you? Are you feeling anything else?
  • In general I was surprised with how pro-AI both Sara and Maie were. It may not be apparent in my summary of her interview, b/c ultimately she was very skeptical of AI’s ability to impact her industry as of this second, she was very optimistic in general about the ways in which it can help engineers. She also spoke about how the inclusion of AI will force Engineers to understand the business side of things more and use their knowledge in that way.
• What do you think you need to be doing right now about what you’ve just learned? (4 points). There are 2 points on how critical your interview questions and reflection are. In order to question any hype or exaggeration or unsubstantiated claims in your interview, see the tips below on how to be critical. (2 points)
  • My biggest takeaway from this process was that I really have to get up to date on the latest AI tools and understand how they can be integrated into my workflow as an engineer. Both Sara and Maie really emphasized this point and I had kind of disregarded it before I heard them harp on it for so long.

Note from Ferris: Dear Dr. Maha, I really am sorry if this last assignment is not to my usual standards, I just finished a two hour exam and I am so exhausted that I don’t really think I wrote anything of subtance.