Alsaleem B4 - GroupC Final Project

AI and the Future of Construction

For our term project, David and I will be writing about AI and its present and future integration into the construction industry. We will be doing this by looking at different facets of within the industry such a BIM, physical manpower, and other areas in the field.

Why was it chosen

In the construction industry, AI has the potential to help reimagine how processes are done such as BIM. AI will identify true collisions versus false ones in BIM, for new building design as an example, AI will identify missing elements like waterproofing for specs for stadiums and help improve the design to a more comprehensive one.

AI knowledge can update itself whenever new data is introduced, creating a full daily report, schedule, project progresses and more to help engineers and designers. As many predict that this AI knowledge will be proactive and will be able to interact with both voice and visuals. Furthermore, a bigger step will enable robots using this knowledge to fetch tools and know where they are and how assemble them in the task given.

Relation to Intelligent Buildings

Artificial Intelligence will create the next industrial revolution as many experts are predicting. As AI architect and author George Zarkadakis once said "It's really important that we take AI seriously. It will lead to the fourth industrial revolution and will change the world in ways we cannot predict now". His mention of the "fourth industrial revolution" refers to the computerization of the manufacturing industry. The fourth industrial revolution is the vision of smart factories, where cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, thus creating a virtual copy of the physical world and make decentralized decisions.

Challenges

Our greatest challenge will be finding factual information from reliable sources. Artificial intelligence in relatively new to the construction industry and because of this there isn’t a great wealth of information out there on everything we want to write about. A lot of information and websites I saw about information we need were written by independent bloggers so verifying this information credibility will be tough.

Additionally, a big challenge in the AI knowledge will be creating and obtaining the data of every detail in small or even mid-sized firms, it will cost tons of money and effort, I can easily be done by very big and recognizable companies now until the technology becomes easier to use by smaller companies in the industry.

Sources:

1-    http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2408538/artificial-intelligence-will-create-the-next-industrial-revolution-experts-claim

2-    https://www.aem.org/news/october-2016/how-artificial-intelligence-could-revolutionize-construction/

Responses:

Egla Qori: It is very nice to use what you are learning in this class and have it in your senior design project. I also agree with the importance of Revit in our industry especially in big firms now. I too saw how important Revit is while applying to jobs in Co-op and also now after graduating. I enjoyed your post and plans for the final project, best of luck!

Vogler: The analysis of the life cycle of a building sounds very interesting, I look forward to learn how it will reduce cost for learning every detail throughout the cycle. I agree it will be challenging going through every detail especially with the lack of accurate information online, however it will be a major key to go through the details of the topics you specified. 

Joseph Chaudhari: Your final project topic is pretty interesting. I liked how you described the example of the 3D model and how a party of many can update the model. At first I did not understand your project well, until I read into it with your examples in became clearer. I am looking forward for your ideas and final project to learn more too.