Who's Afraid of AI?
Artificial Intelligence, abbreviated as AI, is a topic that certainly cannot complain about a lack of attention. All media, including social media, inform (and sometimes misinform) us about AI: what can you do with it, and what should you do with it?
Two camps have emerged
One camp is cautious, even fearful
This camp foresees major problems for employment, but also a completely different power structure. Power has been seized by the immensely wealthy tech bros, and it goes even further: as a kind of new life form, AI takes over control from humanity. That's 'Big Brother, version 2.0'.
The other camp is progressive and enthusiastic
This camp foresees a paradisiacal future. Much work, including a great deal of administrative work, will be taken off our hands, or we'll gain skilled, competent assistants to support us. Several sectors are already making progress, such as education. Teachers no longer have to spend as much time on marking, never their favourite task anyway. AI handles that, and the teacher keeps the final say.
In healthcare, there are the 'helping hands at the bedside'. Care robots, powered by AI-driven learning systems, pamper (lonely) elderly people and help with daily tasks such as dressing, eating, conversation and household chores. And so on: we see dozens of examples passing by.
What about the construction sector?
Well, there's plenty happening here too. Just look at the many publications about AI in construction, though it does pay to stay critical of the source.
Take the book that appeared under the name 'Andries B.V.', full of applications and tips on how to deploy AI in your own organisation: behind Andries B.V. is an author who churns out books on an industrial scale with heavy use of AI.
Fortunately, there are also serious publications on this subject, such as 'Construction Innovation with AI: opportunities and challenges for the future', or articles on 'from challenge to opportunity' and 'time savings and threats' (bouwwereld.nl).
As you'll appreciate, we're not sitting still either. We're already getting plenty of value from AI: working with The AI Doctor, they built a custom AI for us that makes drawing up specifications and quotations faster and better. In the future, we may even start working with painting robots.
We belong to the enthusiastic, progressive camp.