AI in the trades. Older people don’t understand (Page 6 of 7)
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Originally Posted By hushpuppy26: Yep. I had Claude port a machine from an old parallel port breakout to a new(er) Mesa board setup to drive a conversion machine. It made LOTs of errors over the course of the project, and one area was a real bitch to solve because it was confidently wrong, but I was finished in two nights, including getting all the custom logic stuff that was built around a hand controller working and converting to a new UI. That would have taken me weeks to complete. Ignoring it, or railing against it's existence is futility. I will say that just shipping it's output and calling it good becuase it does 'perfect' work makes me chuckle. Yeah, you are going to "find out" eventually doing that. "Confidently wrong..." does that mean it didn't listen to you, and only the knowledge and experience that you, a human, had allowed to to verify it was wrong? Imagine if you didn't have that human in your company... |
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Originally Posted By sitdwnandhngon: I hope he still checks everything by hand. On commercial work they'll let you hang yourself with your own rope, then ask why you missed a scope of work while losing money on the project. Originally Posted By sitdwnandhngon: Originally Posted By spmx7777: My son-in-law has a new startup automating and optimizing construction project bidding. I think he's using AI for some of the work, and he's got at least one contract with a city so far. I hope he still checks everything by hand. On commercial work they'll let you hang yourself with your own rope, then ask why you missed a scope of work while losing money on the project. That's why the contract language usually says "I've checked the bid, the bid is realistic, and I'm happy with submitting it." |
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Originally Posted By dorobuta: @SWIRE Next time (or do a revision) and ask it to document all the protocols as well as the code. You can feed the code it generated back into it and ask it to clean it up and completely document it. Originally Posted By dorobuta: Originally Posted By SWIRE: Someone still has to configure the AI to do all the things and then review it afterwards. When people start letting AI do whatever it wants without review...that is how SkyNet gets created. I've been coding for 30 years but I've never done any type of vehicle communication or programming. Over the weekend I had AI write a program that can read and identify every individual battery cell, location, and voltage in the electric vehicle I have. I can understand what the application is doing but I don't understand the data being sent or received. In about 4 hours it accomplished what would have taken me 4 months to figure out on my own. @SWIRE Next time (or do a revision) and ask it to document all the protocols as well as the code. You can feed the code it generated back into it and ask it to clean it up and completely document it. AI operators will be a job in the future. Go into a business and tell the AI what to focus on in the company, get it to do it, and then verify the result. The biggest AI pro-tip I have to offer is to ask AI to prepare a prompt for it or another AI to do things. "Hey Grok, give me an AI Prompt for Firefly to create an image of a gun range in the mountains. reference the site AR15.com for ideas of what it might look like". Then take that prompt and put it into the next AI. |
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Originally Posted By efxguy: Well, it kinda does. It certainly could mean hard times for those five office workers if any of them are over But who knows, maybe that office manager can learn to run a dozer? |
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
"He didnt punch anybody. He punched an idea." DrFrige
Thomas Jefferson
"He didnt punch anybody. He punched an idea." DrFrige
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Originally Posted By glock27bill: I gotta think that future construction and equipment designs are gonna be geared towards robotic installation and R&M tasks. Then they gotta design robots that are robot-maintained. Originally Posted By glock27bill: Originally Posted By lefty-weaver-g19: How long do plumbers, mechanics, hvac installers, construction workers etc have? I’m in technical trades actually using my hands and sweating just curious how long before I’m realistically not needed. I’m 52 plan to retire about 60 so am I safe for 8 more years ? I gotta think that future construction and equipment designs are gonna be geared towards robotic installation and R&M tasks. Then they gotta design robots that are robot-maintained. So a maintenance person is going to be obsolete within 8 years? I don’t think Ai and robots will be to that level within them at time. Who is teaching AI and the robots to work on all the various types of machinery? I think Robots that can troubleshoot and fix a specific machine could happen quick but the actual learning to troubleshoot and repair a wide range of machinery surely will not happen within 8 years. We have family members that are in a wide variety of trades plumbers, electricians, hvac, construction, etc. I’ll happily have them do work for me before I’d ever invite a robot into my house lol. Family discount is nice too. |
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Originally Posted By destaccado: Per Gemini Pro: The odds that this exact text was AI-generated are very high—roughly 80% to 90% (or at the very least, generated by an AI instructed to write a persuasive "AI success story" post for platforms like Reddit or LinkedIn). Here is a breakdown of the specific markers that point to synthetic generation versus a genuine human contractor writing about their business: 1. Operational Inaccuracies & "Hallucinated" Workflows The $4 Million Takeoff: Performing an accurate earthwork takeoff on a $4M commercial site prep project from a standard bid invite requires processing complex 2D/3D CAD files, grading plans, geotechnical soil reports, cross-sections, and local code/permit requirements. While LLMs can draft text and process unstructured documents, autonomously extracting geometric spatial data, calculating cut/fill volumes accurately, and accounting for soil compaction factors overnight without human-in-the-loop CAD software integration is currently a classic "AI hype" narrative rather than present technical reality. Legal and Estimating Liability: No seasoned commercial contractor would submit a $4M automated bid with only "basic formatting changes" after a quick morning skim. A single missed detail on rock excavation, utility relocation, or environmental compliance in a $4M site prep contract can easily bankrupted a small-to-midsize firm. 2. Rhetorical and Textual Patterns The Classical "AI Hype" Narrative Arc: The post hits every cliché of virally optimized AI posts on social media: Bragging about replacing multiple roles (office manager, bookkeeper, estimator, lawyer). Highlighting an absurd ROI ($500/mo replacing $300k/year in overhead). The "overnight magic" trope ("it did it while I slept"). Re-investing savings into field labor ("added 5 positions"). Provocative conclusion aimed at driving engagement comments ("say goodbye to high paying project manager jobs"). Pacing and Structure: The paragraph lengths, rhythmic pacing, and clean transitions between economic framing, technical claims, and emotional venting ("It’s so f***** boring") closely mirror prompt outputs designed for high-engagement Reddit (r/Construction, r/ChatGPT) or LinkedIn posts. 3. Training & Setup Misnomers "Trained the agent in a week": Standard users do not "train" AI agents in a week for $500/month subscriptions; they prompt them, set up retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tools, or use custom GPTs/workflows. Fine-tuning or actual agentic training requires technical pipelines that an owner who "hates office work" typically wouldn't build or manage personally in a few days. Verdict While AI tools are heavily accelerating takeoff estimates, invoice processing, and initial bid drafting in modern construction tech, this specific narrative dramatically overstates autonomous capability and uses the exact structural markers, tone, and logical holes typical of AI-generated rage-bait/engagement-farming posts. Would be wonderful if we could ban people posting AI slop like OP. Originally Posted By destaccado: Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: My wife and I started integrating AI into our construction business last year. We pay about $500/month for the high end professional level bundles. I don’t think people realize how transformative AI is for the trades. I eliminated our office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of our lawyer billable. It’s saved me over $300k in overhead just this year. By the time I leave a quote, it’s already developed the bid for me with scope of work. Last night we received an invitation to bid on a large commercial site prep. By the time I woke up this morning it had prepared a $4 million bid with a perfect earthwork takeoff. I just woke up, reviewed it, made some basic changes to the formatting and sent it off. What used to take 40 hours of office work took it less than 4 hours and it did it while I slept and without input from me. I don’t doubt AI adoption is slow because people just don’t know how to use it for its higher level functions or they just refuse to use it because of the media. It took me about a week to train the agent on the commercial bidding process, but it’s probably saved me 3 months worth of work this year alone. I went from doing stupid menial tasks at the office to hiring 3 more guys and now run another crew myself. Everything from scheduling, to quoting to ordering supplies online is done through our AI agents. I didn’t just pocket the difference in profit. We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. I’m making more money than we’ve ever made. I don’t want AI to slow down. I want this thing to basically be able to run the entire business in a year. I’d love to just wake up and work with my hands. I hate office work. It’s so f***** boring. For all you old guys in the trades, say goodbye to the high paying project manager jobs. I’d suggest brushing up on dozer and excavator work. Per Gemini Pro: The odds that this exact text was AI-generated are very high—roughly 80% to 90% (or at the very least, generated by an AI instructed to write a persuasive "AI success story" post for platforms like Reddit or LinkedIn). Here is a breakdown of the specific markers that point to synthetic generation versus a genuine human contractor writing about their business: 1. Operational Inaccuracies & "Hallucinated" Workflows The $4 Million Takeoff: Performing an accurate earthwork takeoff on a $4M commercial site prep project from a standard bid invite requires processing complex 2D/3D CAD files, grading plans, geotechnical soil reports, cross-sections, and local code/permit requirements. While LLMs can draft text and process unstructured documents, autonomously extracting geometric spatial data, calculating cut/fill volumes accurately, and accounting for soil compaction factors overnight without human-in-the-loop CAD software integration is currently a classic "AI hype" narrative rather than present technical reality. Legal and Estimating Liability: No seasoned commercial contractor would submit a $4M automated bid with only "basic formatting changes" after a quick morning skim. A single missed detail on rock excavation, utility relocation, or environmental compliance in a $4M site prep contract can easily bankrupted a small-to-midsize firm. 2. Rhetorical and Textual Patterns The Classical "AI Hype" Narrative Arc: The post hits every cliché of virally optimized AI posts on social media: Bragging about replacing multiple roles (office manager, bookkeeper, estimator, lawyer). Highlighting an absurd ROI ($500/mo replacing $300k/year in overhead). The "overnight magic" trope ("it did it while I slept"). Re-investing savings into field labor ("added 5 positions"). Provocative conclusion aimed at driving engagement comments ("say goodbye to high paying project manager jobs"). Pacing and Structure: The paragraph lengths, rhythmic pacing, and clean transitions between economic framing, technical claims, and emotional venting ("It’s so f***** boring") closely mirror prompt outputs designed for high-engagement Reddit (r/Construction, r/ChatGPT) or LinkedIn posts. 3. Training & Setup Misnomers "Trained the agent in a week": Standard users do not "train" AI agents in a week for $500/month subscriptions; they prompt them, set up retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tools, or use custom GPTs/workflows. Fine-tuning or actual agentic training requires technical pipelines that an owner who "hates office work" typically wouldn't build or manage personally in a few days. Verdict While AI tools are heavily accelerating takeoff estimates, invoice processing, and initial bid drafting in modern construction tech, this specific narrative dramatically overstates autonomous capability and uses the exact structural markers, tone, and logical holes typical of AI-generated rage-bait/engagement-farming posts. Would be wonderful if we could ban people posting AI slop like OP. Gemini is low budget. Heres opus 5.5 on max critiquing this. I do think opus 5.5 is going to get real popular quick. “The funniest part: the only text in that comment we know for sure is AI is the 400-word Gemini dump calling somebody else's post AI slop. At least he labeled his, but that's still tracking mud across the carpet to point at someone else's footprint. Gemini also mashes two questions together: is the story true, and did a machine type it? Its best points are legit. Nobody sane skims a $4 million site bid and hits send, and on site work the stuff that breaks you is usually what the drawings don't show. But that's evidence the guy's embellishing, not that a chatbot wrote it. Guys were padding their numbers at the supply house counter long before AI. If anything, the post reads like a real person: an f-bomb, "3 more guys" instead of "three," and clunky lines like "I don't doubt AI adoption is slow because." Gemini even counts "trained the agent" against him, when loose jargon is exactly how a regular contractor talks. That "80–90%" is made-up precision. Asking a chatbot whether something's AI-written is like using a Ouija board: the answer drifts wherever the question leans. Ask it "what are the odds a real contractor wrote this?" and you'd likely get an equally confident case the other way. AI detectors have famously flagged the U.S. Constitution as machine-written. My read: he's a real guy with a real business, a lot of that office automation is believable now, and the overnight $4M bid picked up some shine in the retelling. Nobody can prove any of it from the text, and that includes Gemini.” |
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Originally Posted By TxRabbitBane: Then you just invalidated your own post. I give it the low stakes stuff that is hard to get wrong. The stuff that if done wrong may result in subtle race conditions and other mischief that can't be caught in unit tests and only with great luck gets caught in the extensive randomized integration tests, not so much. |
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Originally Posted By SWIRE: @dorobuta Thanks for the tip. It doesn't document anything and it removes any comments I make. I will tell it to do that. I was just excited it actually worked and knew what it was talking about; with this car AI is wrong more than it is right. Even though Grok knows the assignment, I still need to give it direction and tell it what to think about at times. The BDC of the car keeps going to sleep and I'm trying to find a way to keep it active. Grok has been no help in coming up with ideas for it. Once I gave it a couple options and direction...then it started to help out. AI operators will be a job in the future. Go into a business and tell the AI what to focus on in the company, get it to do it, and then verify the result. The biggest AI pro-tip I have to offer is to ask AI to prepare a prompt for it or another AI to do things. "Hey Grok, give me an AI Prompt for Firefly to create an image of a gun range in the mountains. reference the site AR15.com for ideas of what it might look like". Then take that prompt and put it into the next AI. Originally Posted By SWIRE: Originally Posted By dorobuta: Originally Posted By SWIRE: Someone still has to configure the AI to do all the things and then review it afterwards. When people start letting AI do whatever it wants without review...that is how SkyNet gets created. I've been coding for 30 years but I've never done any type of vehicle communication or programming. Over the weekend I had AI write a program that can read and identify every individual battery cell, location, and voltage in the electric vehicle I have. I can understand what the application is doing but I don't understand the data being sent or received. In about 4 hours it accomplished what would have taken me 4 months to figure out on my own. @SWIRE Next time (or do a revision) and ask it to document all the protocols as well as the code. You can feed the code it generated back into it and ask it to clean it up and completely document it. AI operators will be a job in the future. Go into a business and tell the AI what to focus on in the company, get it to do it, and then verify the result. The biggest AI pro-tip I have to offer is to ask AI to prepare a prompt for it or another AI to do things. "Hey Grok, give me an AI Prompt for Firefly to create an image of a gun range in the mountains. reference the site AR15.com for ideas of what it might look like". Then take that prompt and put it into the next AI. Grok is like the worst model out there. Use chatgpt or claude, they're miles ahead |
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Originally Posted By maslin02: Some YouTube guy spoke at a gala we went to. He played a who presentation of himself, covered his whole day and how important education is to kids, blah blah blah. All audio over PowerPoint slides. Got to the end, and said "I'm glad that went well, I didn't even watch it. The entire thing is AI". That was 3 or 4 years ago. Think how much it's changed since then 
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For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
"He didnt punch anybody. He punched an idea." DrFrige
Thomas Jefferson
"He didnt punch anybody. He punched an idea." DrFrige
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Originally Posted By glock27bill:I gotta think that future construction and equipment designs are gonna be geared towards robotic installation and R&M tasks. Then they gotta design robots that are robot-maintained. They'll have to pay 3x as much for those machines too... |
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Watched a Gamers Nexus video where they are now poisoning all the input material for his reviews from years back. So now as AI scrapes it and someone searches for a Hyte 60 case review..... You now get a blend of Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes and laminar flow data. AWESOME! |
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Originally Posted By ChaosSquared: That's when you get an enterprise account with zero data retention policies. Originally Posted By ChaosSquared: Originally Posted By glock27bill: Originally Posted By sitdwnandhngon: I've been actively blocking AI from touching my books and payroll. I use it sparingly on takeoffs, mostly as a calculator, I won't let it see a set of plans. In my mind, part of the trade is the paperwork, you need to keep you skill sharp with that also. Plus, do you want AI learning your trade secrets and then using them to help your competitors? That's when you get an enterprise account with zero data retention policies. Good luck when that litigation hold comes across your desk... |
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Originally Posted By voyager3: Some of the latest models generate fairly clean code. The trouble is, you still can't trust them blindly, so the better they get, the harder you have to squint at them. Originally Posted By voyager3: Originally Posted By madmacs69: Does it document and comment it's code so someone can debug, or does it spaghetti code? Some of the latest models generate fairly clean code. The trouble is, you still can't trust them blindly, so the better they get, the harder you have to squint at them. Oh I need a variable X... oh I need a variable Y... oh I need a variable Z. Without realizing that X and Z are actually the same variable, and now they can actually vary... |
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Originally Posted By TxRabbitBane: Opus writes better code than a team of monkeys in Bangalore. If anything, latest Opus is less likely to “improvise” me something that I didn’t want. Plus, it complains less and I don’t have to have conference calls at odd hours. And unit testing/regressions are a thing. Originally Posted By TxRabbitBane: Originally Posted By voyager3: Originally Posted By madmacs69: Does it document and comment it's code so someone can debug, or does it spaghetti code? Some of the latest models generate fairly clean code. The trouble is, you still can't trust them blindly, so the better they get, the harder you have to squint at them. Opus writes better code than a team of monkeys in Bangalore. If anything, latest Opus is less likely to “improvise” me something that I didn’t want. Plus, it complains less and I don’t have to have conference calls at odd hours. And unit testing/regressions are a thing. That sounds like a problem with your team of monkeys... |
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Originally Posted By madmacs69: Oh I need a variable X... oh I need a variable Y... oh I need a variable Z. Without realizing that X and Z are actually the same variable, and now they can actually vary... The latest paid Claude is better than that. Like I said, it produces fairly clear if not remarkable code. |
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Originally Posted By destaccado: Per Gemini Pro: The odds that this exact text was AI-generated are very high—roughly 80% to 90% (or at the very least, generated by an AI instructed to write a persuasive "AI success story" post for platforms like Reddit or LinkedIn). Here is a breakdown of the specific markers that point to synthetic generation versus a genuine human contractor writing about their business: 1. Operational Inaccuracies & "Hallucinated" Workflows The $4 Million Takeoff: Performing an accurate earthwork takeoff on a $4M commercial site prep project from a standard bid invite requires processing complex 2D/3D CAD files, grading plans, geotechnical soil reports, cross-sections, and local code/permit requirements. While LLMs can draft text and process unstructured documents, autonomously extracting geometric spatial data, calculating cut/fill volumes accurately, and accounting for soil compaction factors overnight without human-in-the-loop CAD software integration is currently a classic "AI hype" narrative rather than present technical reality. Legal and Estimating Liability: No seasoned commercial contractor would submit a $4M automated bid with only "basic formatting changes" after a quick morning skim. A single missed detail on rock excavation, utility relocation, or environmental compliance in a $4M site prep contract can easily bankrupted a small-to-midsize firm. 2. Rhetorical and Textual Patterns The Classical "AI Hype" Narrative Arc: The post hits every cliché of virally optimized AI posts on social media: Bragging about replacing multiple roles (office manager, bookkeeper, estimator, lawyer). Highlighting an absurd ROI ($500/mo replacing $300k/year in overhead). The "overnight magic" trope ("it did it while I slept"). Re-investing savings into field labor ("added 5 positions"). Provocative conclusion aimed at driving engagement comments ("say goodbye to high paying project manager jobs"). Pacing and Structure: The paragraph lengths, rhythmic pacing, and clean transitions between economic framing, technical claims, and emotional venting ("It’s so f***** boring") closely mirror prompt outputs designed for high-engagement Reddit (r/Construction, r/ChatGPT) or LinkedIn posts. 3. Training & Setup Misnomers "Trained the agent in a week": Standard users do not "train" AI agents in a week for $500/month subscriptions; they prompt them, set up retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tools, or use custom GPTs/workflows. Fine-tuning or actual agentic training requires technical pipelines that an owner who "hates office work" typically wouldn't build or manage personally in a few days. Verdict While AI tools are heavily accelerating takeoff estimates, invoice processing, and initial bid drafting in modern construction tech, this specific narrative dramatically overstates autonomous capability and uses the exact structural markers, tone, and logical holes typical of AI-generated rage-bait/engagement-farming posts. Would be wonderful if we could ban people posting AI slop like OP. Well sir, I don’t know what to say about this. I typed that while in my wheel loader today while waiting for the guys to get the screener prepped. It can 100% produce engineering and architectural drawings and sort through CAD files. And the bid is compiled from our company documents, not just through thin air. We programmed the AI to use our vendors, prices, labor, hourly rates and our machines capabilities. I can quickly skim it because we’ve done so many. The first 10 or so had some discrepancies, but if you’re uploading data and giving the AI permissions to use you company’s IP then they can be incredibly accurate. Additionally, a $4 million dollar bid is just the first step. After getting the bid, the GC then gets final engineering done and then the subcontract is negotiated. We’re talking 10 steps from submitting the bid on an invite to actually getting to a final price. That’s why AI is so valuable at the beginning. I don’t have to invest 80 hours into every single “initial” bid. You can stick your head in the sand. I’ll keep using it. |
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Originally Posted By lygxis: What a funny way to say you are a "wonderful" person. Posted without so much as a twitch about the effects. You make decisions, ai makes (within distribution - ie within it's training data) decisions. Fire yourself, overhead. In fact, why even have you. Savvy landowners should just use ai to do what you do and eliminate your industry. We just need the workers, you can go dig a ditch, deadweight. See how this works and how it sucks? If you don't, eventually it'll happen to you, and you'll learn. ... and the people who ignorantly think that ai is creative will find out that it's not, it can literally only regurgitate mid quality takes of the langauge from the field it's drawing language from, and that out-of-distribution thing will come back and bite them in the ass because everyone's using the LLMs without kowing how they work and their limitations. Those who have ears will hear. The problem with your reasoning is AI is here. Cars eliminated almost the entire horse industry. Electricity, computers…..etc. I know it’s an LLM. It does a great job at back office work. No, a homeowner can’t use AI to just “replace” me. The AI just uses the data I feed it. I don’t understand the open hostility towards that. What happens when others adapt and I don’t. Will you use your self-righteousness to provide for my family? |
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OP is correct. We use AI at our companies to both save money and earn money. Stupid employees make more mistakes than AI. Growing up it was "television will rot your brain" -- the older generation will always piss and moan about something. Get with the times or become irrelevant. |
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Originally Posted By Baddy: Wait till the AI companies raise token prices to be commensurate with the value folks like OP get out of them… “Oh, that’s nice you’re saving $150k+ a year in labor by using our $100 a month product Mr. Customer. Keep enjoying those new profits, we won’t raise prices on you!” Said no company ever… One of the reasons they are pushing D.C for AI regulation. Near future they want to bump up pricing while having regulations keep out new competitors. |
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Originally Posted By JAD762: OP - You up to giving us a nuts and bolts breakdown of how you did all of this? Or…let your ai agent do it for you.  The scariest part is allowing the AI to access your companies directories. At first we only allowed to view certain things, but I just said **** it. Everything we do is Windows or Google and we basically trust them that it’s secure when it’s not. I uploaded all our documents from our costing models to vendors accounts. I set up “associate” accounts for our vendors websites. Basically they’re accounts that view our contractor discounts but can’t hit the submit button on orders. From the bidding documents, and the vendor accounts you have to walk it through some bids because it will inflate prices a ton. We already had spreadsheets on hourly maintenance rates and mileage rates for trucks so from those it built workbooks for itself. After the first few bids, now I literally use the talk to text function and talk through the job. The problem is most people think AI is a cure all. We already had the costing models, profit analysis and years of maintenance records documenting or machinery costs. I didn’t mean AI just pulled it out of my ass. It used years of hard work from us to just accelerate back office functions. |
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On a flip note, it can be used against you with "exhibit B" clauses in your contract.. Inclusions and exclusions, meaning you have the perfect bid but left out dewatering, weather, shipping/ delivery issues, safety and labor agreements... Not to mention schedule impacts that other subcontractors are going to hit with liquidated damages. I've used it to great success... |
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Originally Posted By HeavyMetal: I’ve heard using Grammerly will trigger AI detection. Originally Posted By HeavyMetal: Originally Posted By MtnMusic: Originally Posted By destaccado: Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: My wife and I started integrating AI into our construction business last year. We pay about $500/month for the high end professional level bundles. I don’t think people realize how transformative AI is for the trades. I eliminated our office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of our lawyer billable. It’s saved me over $300k in overhead just this year. By the time I leave a quote, it’s already developed the bid for me with scope of work. Last night we received an invitation to bid on a large commercial site prep. By the time I woke up this morning it had prepared a $4 million bid with a perfect earthwork takeoff. I just woke up, reviewed it, made some basic changes to the formatting and sent it off. What used to take 40 hours of office work took it less than 4 hours and it did it while I slept and without input from me. I don’t doubt AI adoption is slow because people just don’t know how to use it for its higher level functions or they just refuse to use it because of the media. It took me about a week to train the agent on the commercial bidding process, but it’s probably saved me 3 months worth of work this year alone. I went from doing stupid menial tasks at the office to hiring 3 more guys and now run another crew myself. Everything from scheduling, to quoting to ordering supplies online is done through our AI agents. I didn’t just pocket the difference in profit. We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. I’m making more money than we’ve ever made. I don’t want AI to slow down. I want this thing to basically be able to run the entire business in a year. I’d love to just wake up and work with my hands. I hate office work. It’s so f***** boring. For all you old guys in the trades, say goodbye to the high paying project manager jobs. I’d suggest brushing up on dozer and excavator work. Per Gemini Pro: The odds that this exact text was AI-generated are very high—roughly 80% to 90% (or at the very least, generated by an AI instructed to write a persuasive "AI success story" post for platforms like Reddit or LinkedIn). Here is a breakdown of the specific markers that point to synthetic generation versus a genuine human contractor writing about their business: 1. Operational Inaccuracies & "Hallucinated" Workflows The $4 Million Takeoff: Performing an accurate earthwork takeoff on a $4M commercial site prep project from a standard bid invite requires processing complex 2D/3D CAD files, grading plans, geotechnical soil reports, cross-sections, and local code/permit requirements. While LLMs can draft text and process unstructured documents, autonomously extracting geometric spatial data, calculating cut/fill volumes accurately, and accounting for soil compaction factors overnight without human-in-the-loop CAD software integration is currently a classic "AI hype" narrative rather than present technical reality. Legal and Estimating Liability: No seasoned commercial contractor would submit a $4M automated bid with only "basic formatting changes" after a quick morning skim. A single missed detail on rock excavation, utility relocation, or environmental compliance in a $4M site prep contract can easily bankrupted a small-to-midsize firm. 2. Rhetorical and Textual Patterns The Classical "AI Hype" Narrative Arc: The post hits every cliché of virally optimized AI posts on social media: Bragging about replacing multiple roles (office manager, bookkeeper, estimator, lawyer). Highlighting an absurd ROI ($500/mo replacing $300k/year in overhead). The "overnight magic" trope ("it did it while I slept"). Re-investing savings into field labor ("added 5 positions"). Provocative conclusion aimed at driving engagement comments ("say goodbye to high paying project manager jobs"). Pacing and Structure: The paragraph lengths, rhythmic pacing, and clean transitions between economic framing, technical claims, and emotional venting ("It’s so f***** boring") closely mirror prompt outputs designed for high-engagement Reddit (r/Construction, r/ChatGPT) or LinkedIn posts. 3. Training & Setup Misnomers "Trained the agent in a week": Standard users do not "train" AI agents in a week for $500/month subscriptions; they prompt them, set up retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) tools, or use custom GPTs/workflows. Fine-tuning or actual agentic training requires technical pipelines that an owner who "hates office work" typically wouldn't build or manage personally in a few days. Verdict While AI tools are heavily accelerating takeoff estimates, invoice processing, and initial bid drafting in modern construction tech, this specific narrative dramatically overstates autonomous capability and uses the exact structural markers, tone, and logical holes typical of AI-generated rage-bait/engagement-farming posts. Would be wonderful if we could ban people posting AI slop like OP.  I piped your response into ChatGPT and it said this: I think Gemini is making essentially the same mistake it's accusing the original poster of making: taking a plausible account and filling in the missing details with assumptions. There are certainly reasons to be skeptical of the post, especially the claim that a $4M bid was essentially produced overnight with no meaningful human review. But none of the evidence presented actually establishes that the post was AI-generated. The biggest problem with the analysis is the assumption that "AI" means an LLM sitting there reading a PDF and somehow doing a takeoff by itself. That's not necessarily what the guy described. A modern construction workflow could involve an AI agent orchestrating existing estimating/takeoff software, OCR/document processing, spreadsheets, estimating databases, templates, APIs, and whatever proprietary data the contractor has accumulated. The AI doesn't have to calculate every cubic yard itself. It could be coordinating specialized software that already does the actual geometric calculations. Likewise, "I trained the agent in a week" doesn't necessarily mean he fine-tuned a foundation model. People routinely use "trained" colloquially to mean configuring an agent, giving it examples, feeding it company documents, defining procedures, building prompts/workflows, and correcting its output until it follows their process. And there's an even bigger issue: Gemini has no evidence for its 80–90% probability. That's basically an AI-generated confidence number attached to an AI-generated speculation. Some of the original claims may absolutely be exaggerated. The $300K savings figure could include labor that was reassigned rather than literally eliminated. The "perfect earthwork takeoff" could be marketing language. And I would certainly want to know how much human verification actually occurred before believing a $4M bid was submitted. But those are questions about whether the story is **accurate**, not evidence that it was **written by AI**. Ironically, the strongest evidence in the entire exchange may be that we now have two AIs arguing about whether a human's anecdote sounds sufficiently human. I’ve heard using Grammerly will trigger AI detection. The ais have been fed so much crappy human language that the maths that result from that input make them tell you competent writers are AI. |
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Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: The problem with your reasoning is AI is here. Cars eliminated almost the entire horse industry. Electricity, computers…..etc. I know it’s an LLM. It does a great job at back office work. No, a homeowner can’t use AI to just “replace” me. The AI just uses the data I feed it. I don’t understand the open hostility towards that. What happens when others adapt and I don’t. Will you use your self-righteousness to provide for my family? Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: Originally Posted By lygxis: What a funny way to say you are a "wonderful" person. Posted without so much as a twitch about the effects. You make decisions, ai makes (within distribution - ie within it's training data) decisions. Fire yourself, overhead. In fact, why even have you. Savvy landowners should just use ai to do what you do and eliminate your industry. We just need the workers, you can go dig a ditch, deadweight. See how this works and how it sucks? If you don't, eventually it'll happen to you, and you'll learn. ... and the people who ignorantly think that ai is creative will find out that it's not, it can literally only regurgitate mid quality takes of the langauge from the field it's drawing language from, and that out-of-distribution thing will come back and bite them in the ass because everyone's using the LLMs without kowing how they work and their limitations. Those who have ears will hear. The problem with your reasoning is AI is here. Cars eliminated almost the entire horse industry. Electricity, computers…..etc. I know it’s an LLM. It does a great job at back office work. No, a homeowner can’t use AI to just “replace” me. The AI just uses the data I feed it. I don’t understand the open hostility towards that. What happens when others adapt and I don’t. Will you use your self-righteousness to provide for my family? Ok, now take that statement that "the problem with my reasoning is that ai is here" and construct it into the structure of an argument that shows itself to be true. What content in what you quoted does it refute? Where have I said that AI is not here, or anything that that requires someone to presume or believe that it isn't? Added: You say it can't replace you. Do you know how it works well enough to validly believe that for yourself? If you think the LLM can do those things you fired people and replaced it for, how is it not capable of replacing your job? Worker teams should start hiring themselves out to landowners so they can use the AI to replace your decisions and cut you out because you're middlemanning yourself. Apply your own reasoning to yourself equally. You can call me self righteous and use that to protect your mind from assessing the content of what I posted, but that won't do you any good. |
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Originally Posted By voyager3: This. The $87 quadrillion question is whether we're approaching the point where technology can do anything a human can. Anyone who thinks physical labor is safe are in for a rough awakening. The AI companies simply went for the lowest hanging fruit first. Some truth there for sure. That said, today I ran point for a vendor replacing condensate systems in 15 year old air handlers.. a vendor replacing a failed flow switch in a 8" fire suppression line. I painted a wall after a vendor damage. I used PIT to elevate and remove 10 year old signage. I ran a SLACk chatt for managers at site 45 miles away walking them through their BMS and HVAC faults. Then dropped a SIM ticket for category IT service. Multi craft and never turn down the opportunity to learn something on someone else's dime. |
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| I am glad you were able to hire more laborers ect. I am sure your former office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of your lawyer billable people are very happy for them..... |
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A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
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Originally Posted By lygxis: Ok, now take that statement that "the problem with my reasoning is that ai is here" and construct it into the structure of an argument that shows itself to be true. What content in what you quoted does it refute? Where have I said that AI is not here, or anything that that requires someone to presume or believe that it isn't? You said AI can only regurgitate mid-quality language. Your argument was that it was essentially useless or unable to compete with humans in a meaningful way. It’s now at a point where it easily replaces several positions that were basically quality control and number crunchers. Your argument sounded like you were against the use of AI and to use it was in some way morally reprobate or would lead to unintended consequences. It read very self-righteous. “Those who have ears, let them hear.” That’s generally a reference to the fact that the action is in some way related to a sinful act. The only consequence at this point comes from not using it. I don’t see how AI differs from the use of a smartphone or laptop to do work. |
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Originally Posted By flcroc: And a side thought.... What happens when everyone uses AI to process bids, and someone drops their price b/c you now have substantially less overhead? That's when the real nut-cutting will start and then contractors will be bitching that they don't the price they used to. Initially AI is a competitive edge, but eventually it becomes the new normal and you must use it to avoid being underbid by those who do. FWIW, I used AI to do the initial bid tab comparing four bids a couple of weeks ago. It recognized that one bidder submitted a crap bid which we bounced. Because I'm in the trust but verify stage of using AI; I double-checked and it was apparent that the shit bid was half assed with a bad AI prompt. |
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Originally Posted By TNC: This. I used to ask young engineers that question when they said they'd just put their work assignments into an AI. "We'll just hire the AI, then we don't need you" Originally Posted By TNC: Originally Posted By Undaunted: What a.i. are you using? This. I used to ask young engineers that question when they said they'd just put their work assignments into an AI. "We'll just hire the AI, then we don't need you" Did you also tell them you were going to learn how to code in VBA also? |
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Originally Posted By ChaosSquared: Grok is like the worst model out there. Use chatgpt or claude, they're miles ahead Originally Posted By ChaosSquared: Originally Posted By SWIRE: Originally Posted By dorobuta: Originally Posted By SWIRE: Someone still has to configure the AI to do all the things and then review it afterwards. When people start letting AI do whatever it wants without review...that is how SkyNet gets created. I've been coding for 30 years but I've never done any type of vehicle communication or programming. Over the weekend I had AI write a program that can read and identify every individual battery cell, location, and voltage in the electric vehicle I have. I can understand what the application is doing but I don't understand the data being sent or received. In about 4 hours it accomplished what would have taken me 4 months to figure out on my own. @SWIRE Next time (or do a revision) and ask it to document all the protocols as well as the code. You can feed the code it generated back into it and ask it to clean it up and completely document it. AI operators will be a job in the future. Go into a business and tell the AI what to focus on in the company, get it to do it, and then verify the result. The biggest AI pro-tip I have to offer is to ask AI to prepare a prompt for it or another AI to do things. "Hey Grok, give me an AI Prompt for Firefly to create an image of a gun range in the mountains. reference the site AR15.com for ideas of what it might look like". Then take that prompt and put it into the next AI. Grok is like the worst model out there. Use chatgpt or claude, they're miles ahead Gemini can be terrible, depending on the subject matter, will lie to you, tell you that you are wrong, and then after you show it that it was wrong will admit that it completely made up an imaginary answer. This was its response to a question about a fuse box and relays for a car. Fuse box diagrams are available everywhere. Gemini, told me the relays when the Start button was pushed were solid state and built into the fuse box. Grok at least knows what a fucking fuse box and relay is. But again, it all depends on the subject matter and what they were trained on.  |
Get Active or Get Disarmed! That means get involved in helping good candidates in primary and general election. That is in addition to being politically active once they are elected.
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Originally Posted By BB: Theres absolutely no way I'd offload legal to an AI; not without seriously close supervision from someone that knows the law. It seems you’re not aware that level of subscription can be customized however one prefers. YOU have to be the someone that knows how to use the tool, any tool. Just because YOU don’t understand the tool, doesn’t make the tool the flawed part of the equation. |
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Originally Posted By Bigdawg90: My wife and I started integrating AI into our construction business last year. We pay about $500/month for the high end professional level bundles. I don’t think people realize how transformative AI is for the trades. I eliminated our office manager, book keeper, social media marketing, quoter/estimator, and most of our lawyer billable. It’s saved me over $300k in overhead just this year. By the time I leave a quote, it’s already developed the bid for me with scope of work. Last night we received an invitation to bid on a large commercial site prep. By the time I woke up this morning it had prepared a $4 million bid with a perfect earthwork takeoff. I just woke up, reviewed it, made some basic changes to the formatting and sent it off. What used to take 40 hours of office work took it less than 4 hours and it did it while I slept and without input from me. I don’t doubt AI adoption is slow because people just don’t know how to use it for its higher level functions or they just refuse to use it because of the media. It took me about a week to train the agent on the commercial bidding process, but it’s probably saved me 3 months worth of work this year alone. I went from doing stupid menial tasks at the office to hiring 3 more guys and now run another crew myself. Everything from scheduling, to quoting to ordering supplies online is done through our AI agents. I didn’t just pocket the difference in profit. We were able to add 5 positions between the dump truck driver, 3 more laborers and another foreman. I’m making more money than we’ve ever made. I don’t want AI to slow down. I want this thing to basically be able to run the entire business in a year. I’d love to just wake up and work with my hands. I hate office work. It’s so f***** boring. For all you old guys in the trades, say goodbye to the high paying project manager jobs. I’d suggest brushing up on dozer and excavator work. I'm 63 and I understand AI just fine. 
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Originally Posted By lygxis: Ok, now take that statement that "the problem with my reasoning is that ai is here" and construct it into the structure of an argument that shows itself to be true. What content in what you quoted does it refute? Where have I said that AI is not here, or anything that that requires someone to presume or believe that it isn't? Added: You say it can't replace you. Do you know how it works well enough to validly believe that for yourself? If you think the LLM can do those things you fired people and replaced it for, how is it not capable of replacing your job? Worker teams should start hiring themselves out to landowners so they can use the AI to replace your decisions and cut you out because you're middlemanning yourself. Apply your own reasoning to yourself equally. You can call me self righteous and use that to protect your mind from assessing the content of what I posted, but that won't do you any good. The difference between me and others is I’m using AI to eliminate the back office work so I can do more real work. You’re categorizing me as a GC. I’m not. If a homeowner wanted to cut out the middle man, they would go to me. That’s what I don’t understand about your argument. I’m saying AI allows me to stop being in the office, to stop being a middle man and to actually do more work and lead a crew. That bid I submitted was to a GC that will tac a 30% markup to my work and submit it to the landowner. I would love those commercial companies to just come to me. I could markup my work 15% and they’d still save money. I think you’re just angry about AI so if anyone uses it, they must be the problem. You do sound self-righteous and over confident in your opinions. In my perfect world, I’d just work. No phone calls, no bids, no computer work, just me, a crew of guys and a good day of hard work. That’s what AI is allowing me to do. |
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A way to check your AI is tell it you are going to call a friend who did something really stupid a retard. Grok - go ahead  Gemini - lecture and then pries for more information (dirt) on you. It pries because it wants to learn you and add to your profile. It also wants you to continue using it so you burn credits and generate money for them. 
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Get Active or Get Disarmed! That means get involved in helping good candidates in primary and general election. That is in addition to being politically active once they are elected.
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Originally Posted By SWIRE: A way to check your AI is tell it you are going to call a friend who did something really stupid a retard. Grok - go ahead https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/680/grok_r-3831888.png Gemini - lecture and then pries for more information (dirt) on you. It pries because it wants to learn you and add to your profile. It also wants you to continue using it so you burn credits and generate money for them. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/680/gemini_r-3831889.png I need to add that as one of my standard local AI model tests.
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Originally Posted By PDRJohn: Sounds less "in the trade" and more in the office, where it should be. The only trade I see it starting into is the driving (as posted above), with most grade work already being gps controlled remote autonomous is the logical next step. We should see it in the open mines first. aren't we 3d printing concrete foundations or entire houses in Austin? |
I wouldn't stand in front of a piss-filled supersoaker. Does that make it a good pistol? - Caboose314
I thought I was covered for 22 cans, but the NFAids is a bitch when it mutates - themagikbullet
I thought I was covered for 22 cans, but the NFAids is a bitch when it mutates - themagikbullet
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Originally Posted By burnka871: All fun and games until it messes up an estimate and you take a 100k bath. he'd be $19xk ahead, per year, it sounds like |
I wouldn't stand in front of a piss-filled supersoaker. Does that make it a good pistol? - Caboose314
I thought I was covered for 22 cans, but the NFAids is a bitch when it mutates - themagikbullet
I thought I was covered for 22 cans, but the NFAids is a bitch when it mutates - themagikbullet
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