Just a heads up, in case you did not know: Claude Fable 5 just came out, and it is getting much better at creating SketchUp models/plugins.
I asked it to make this dresser, and on the first try, it actually created a pretty decent model compared to what AI used to produce before.
Here is the file if anyone wants to take a look. It is not perfect. The drawers are not all the same size or perfectly symmetrical, but it is decent enough to use as a starting point.
AI is only getting stronger. I started using it to some benefit last August. Now I’m practically using it every day to help debug and even write some of my code. In a couple more years I won’t even be needed. In fact, I don’t believe engineers and architects will technically be needed either. The times are changing and it is faster than I’ve seen at any point in my life.
I wonder Medeek, why bother then ?
If you think, you know you won’t be needed in a couple of years, why not jump ship first ahead of everyone and buy a ranch or something (actual question).
I guess it’s time to become an amazon driver. these guys won’t be replaced by AI anytime soon, AI is way more expensive than modern servitude ^^
I hate to say this but we’ve been seeing a significant slow down in some design work in the last year or so.
A few years back we used to have a dedicated guy creating visuals (Joinery/Shop fitting).
His worked slowed so much that he was “let go” and any visuals were created by me which amounted to a few days a month.
My job mostly consists of modelling something in Sketchup, creating a few basic scenes and then switching to Layout for the views and dimensions. A “Shaded with Textures” view used to suffice.
We’ve recently had clients send us their own visuals created by AI and just added some dimensions in their brief.
One client even told us they’d sketched a design on a piece of A4 paper, took a photo of it and got their phone to create a photorealistic version.
I’m sure I have seen news reports of amazon using drones for deliveries both Live and Trial! Those driver jobs may not be so safe especially when autonomous vehicles become accepted (Waymo?)
yer delivery drivers are absolutely going to be screwed. Amazon have been installing cameras to track drivers movements to train AI once the robots become cheap enough by scale they will be walking the packages to your door while the auto driving van does the rout.
AI and robots will take over all manual labour jobs eventually and it will be hailed as a health and safety breakthrough as no humans we injured or put in harms way. Its a risk assessors wet dream.
I’m not yet convinced that this is an imminent prospect. A silhouette of an object is easy; a 3D visual isn’t so different. Now ask the AI to make an informed decision on which window supplier to use and provide assembly details that correctly consider structural, thermal, acoustic, and environmental sealing details for the different opening conditions in a building with different finishes around the openings; then sit back and wait for the defects claims to roll in.
If we’re building standard boxes, then AI may offer a solution, but any deviant behaviour is likely to lead to failures without knowledgeable real-world decision-making and supervision.
My last AI rendering test was passable, but it did insist on modifying the original SU geometry despite a request not to change it. The one obvious and questionable change was to reposition the exposed rainwater collection pipes, which were in their original position for a good reason.
I’m seeing this as well. Rapid fire emails (or in some cases texts with my regular fabrication clients).
‘Hey Mike, client likes this (my work, run through AI, but adding a bastardized porch tacked on that sort of goes against the whole vernacular approach we were taking)’ can you make it work?’
30 minutes and 6 messages each slightly different later
‘No, see how the stone goes up and around on their image, more like that.’
Sigh, stone doesn’t work like that, but AI doesn’t know that.
‘OK, that’s pretty close, we’ll figure it out in production.’
Deep Sigh
I signed off ‘MikeGPT’ to them once. I don’t think they were amused.
I’m spending a lot of time thinking about how to get ahead of this, including changing some of my recent marketing to push for the human connection / touch.
The same way I see my mum, even though I trained her on everything computer related, she prefers to have a paper archive, a paper bill to pay, a person on the phone or at the till.
Even with AI growth, there will be a need for human from human. not everyone will be an AI genius, and at the first trouble, they will still need human help and so on.
but it’s like it has been with translators and many graphic designers lately, it won’t kill all of them, but many won’t survive. How to be the ones that survives is a tough question, especially since the thing that kills our profession is still being invented.
Oh just more AI slop.. “no wucking furries” as we say in Oz!
Just created my own extension this afternoon… don’t know a line of Ruby Code or HTML, just know what I wanted and developed a solution with Gemini. still a prototype but pretty useful to me.
You ever tried to buy a piece of land in Utah or anywhere else in the western US for that matter. Since the price jump of 2022 everything is sky high. A $300,000 dollar home is now selling for $550,000. I really don’t want a $3,500 a month mortgage right now, but yes, a ranch or even some sort of property does sound really nice right now. I was raised on a potato farm in northern B.C Canada, city dwelling is really not my thing.
Even if I did buy a “ranch” why would I stop what I’m doing? I do what I do for two reasons, obviously I need to put food on the table but the other big reason is that I really love what I’m doing. If this were not the case I would have already jumped ship and ran back to one of those very well paying corporate engineering jobs in Washington State. Been there, done that, not interested. And the end of the day I like to do my own thing, create my own product and have a vested ownership in what I do.
At some point AI will probably take it all away but until it does I will get keep on keeping on.
Amazon will eventually figure out how to automate deliveries, if anyone can they will.
As AI gets smarter and more capable it will allow people to create plugins that have zero coding experience. It significantly lowers the bar to entry. In fact, we are already there, look at the posts on this thread.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but it does seriously democratize the playing field. I’ve spent years developing my plugins especially the Wall and Truss plugins. At some point AI will be able to create something that rivals my plugins or even exceeds them in capability and functionality, and it will be able to do this in a few minutes and anyone will be able to do this provided they know what they want and what parameters they need to feed into the extension. At that point I will become obsolete.
But that is just the beginning… at some point in the not to distant future AI will be able to reverse engineer SketchUp itself and provide a SketchUp clone for anyone that needs that type of software. At that point SketchUp as a business will become obsolete as know one will want to pay for a software they can get for free at any time.
As AI becomes even more capable there will be no need for design software. You will just tell AI what type of structure you want designed and it will create 3D models and once you are satisfied with the design it will produce the appropriate engineering docs and the full set of construction documents (PDF).
It will then submit them electronically to all the proper building departments and officials who will then use AI to analyze them and provide comments which will then be sent back to you At that time you will then feed those comments back into your AI which will make any corrections and adjustments necessary and then resubmit the corrected planset.
This is the future, and it is no longer a matter of “if” it is just a matter of “when”.
When my son first showed me ChatGPT in 2022 I laughed at what it could do.
I was gonna go with “sell a kidney” but you have a kid, so sell one of his
here lies the fault in your thinking.
it’s 2026, I’m in a village that finally decided to start digitising their local planning code. also, they accept faxes as an ok way of communication.
and if sending faxes to my city hall delays the moment they’ll go full AI, trust me, I’m willing to fax them everyday.
This is magical thinking – it’s not going to happen (at least in the UK) without a monumental investment in local government and local authority Building Control bodies and then you have all the private Building Control bodies.
Here in the UK we are on track to spend over £100B for HS2 massively over budget, massively downgraded and not due to open fully until nearly 2040!
In the UK there is an initiative to go further with the digital submission of planning applications which is currently digital and has been for some time.
UK government announced a < £10M investment with Google to see how “AI” could be integrated into the planning system.
Guess what – it would mean that ALL “CAD” software would have to speak in the required format for an “AI” based system.
Meanwhile I have bought a property out in the country and do stained glass restoration work and varied commissions of my choice as a semi retired artist/craftsman.
AI is having an effect on my industry but not one that will effect me, at least in the lifetime of my liver.
Top of my priorities at the moment are finishing my small garage to keep my Triumph in the comfort to which it is accustomed and making a few Wombat gates to stop my fat waddling neighbours ploughing though my gates like tanks.
investment in local government and local authority Building Control bodies and then you have all the private Building Control bodies.