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Michael Foster

Mrs. Cranwell

Comp.1

12 November 2017

The Future of Civil Engineering

While researching a career in civil engineering, one doubt never fails to pop up. Will the

future of A.I. (artificial intelligence) make civil engineering and engineering in general obsolete?

This is quite a question to ponder. The skepticists say A.I. will replace engineers jobs while the

optimists say it will make jobs for the engineers. Most well known and respected engineers side

with the optimists on this one. Throughout this argumentative research paper one will learn how

yes, the engineering we see today will change, but engineers will not lose jobs because of it.

According to Jeff Vickers, a region 4 CDOT civil engineer, the institution of civil engineers and

various other sources in this paper, the future of engineering is bright. A young engineering

prospect has much to look forward to in the future of civil engineering and engineering in

general.

Here are the reasons why some skepticists believe A.I. will hurt civil engineering.

According to Jeff Vickers, the head civil engineer for the region four Colorado Department of

Transportation, the skepticists believe that artificial intelligence will “Get rid of many routine

tasks that young engineers are given to learn the job,” The skepticists think that the use of A.I. in

civil engineering and engineering in general will get rid of work for engineers and therefore less
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engineers will be needed. The skepticists also believe that self driving cars will lead to less road

maintenance.

The issue with A.I. in civil engineering is a very real worry on the surface but once

further investigated becomes less of a problem. Civil engineering “civilizations oldest career”

has gone through many growth spurts in its life that have gotten rid of repetitive tasks. An

example of this would be when the computer came out, this made it so engineers did not have to

write papers and do calculations by hand anymore. Jobs were expected to be lost at this time but

they were not according to Machine Design “engineers in the past also relied on drafting

instruments and their own abilities at sketching and mechanical drawing”meaning that when the

computer aided design came out there would be less need and therefore less jobs for engineers.

This is not true because according to The Bureau of Labor Statistics civil engineering has only

added jobs in the past, especially in the years where computers began their use in engineering.

The only thing that changed was younger engineers learned different curriculum in school and

started on slightly harder projects in the work force. Exactly what most experts perceive to

happen in this civil engineering growth spurt.

Engineering will change but after some research one can conclude there will no job loss,

only growth. The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) says “machines will hugely assist our

engineering judgement” this means with the use of big data engineers will be able to prove many

theories that they expected but could not certainly say was true. All engineers will need to learn

some form of computer code in order to work with their new robotic colleagues. The ICE

also brings up the fact that there are some engineering decisions we will never be able to

trust computers with, stating “ We also will need to reconsider the ethics that underlie our

profession, as we code computers to replace much of what we now call engineering judgement
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exercised by humans,” Most would agree that they would not drive on a bridge designed and

built by computers, with no human to watch over and ma\

ke sure nothing goes wrong. Heck half

the time someone gets on a computer they can’t even type a paper because it has a virus.

Artificial intelligence will not only come in the form of computers to help civilization

with jobs but also in the form of self driving cars. Hindawi, a mathematical engineering firm

states “Civilizations of the future will work much like an ant colony works today,” This means

that everything will communicate. Cars will communicate with traffic stops, cars with roads, cars

with other cars, etc. An argument against this is that future infrastructure will need less repair

due to more consistency in cars, this is a solid argument but Mr.Vickers has a great rebuttal to

this. Jeff Vickers states “ There may be less repair on the infrastructure of the future, but we must

first get to the infrastructure of the future,” everything from roads and bridges to stoplights will

need to be optimized and connected to the internet to communicate with the cars of the future.

Something that, considering we still drive on roads hundreds of years old, is going to take time.

Longer than any career today will be, that is for sure.

The engineer of the future will have more responsibility in their hands than ever before.

With the artificial intelligence tools given to them they will be able to accomplish far more than

any engineers in the past were able to. The average engineering job will change but will not be

lost. Our world will be so connected through computers that all engineers, no matter what

discipline, will have to learn some form of computer code. Whether this will be in this generation

or the next that is something only time can tell. The engineers of the future have many exciting

problems to solve and experts can assure you that they look forward to solving them. After all

that is what an engineer lives for. After everything's said and done they hope they can say they
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have helped solve these problems and advanced human civilization moving it towards a

completely connected world that today's generation may never get to experience but that

generations after will.

Works Cited
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Chapman, Tim. “How Artificial Intelligence Will Reshape Civil Engineering.” Institution of Civil

Engineers (ICE), Institution of Civil Engineers, www.ice.org.uk/news-and-insight/ice-

thinks/infrastructure-transformation/how-artificial-intelligence-will-reshape-civil-eng.

Lu, Pengzhen, et al. “Artificial Intelligence in Civil Engineering.” Mathematical Problems in

Engineering, Hindawi, 5 Dec. 2012, www.hindawi.com/journals/mpe/2012/145974/.

Vickers, Jeff. “Future of Civil Engineering.” 4 Nov. 2017.

Stephen Mraz | Apr 07, 2009. “Changes in the Engineering Profession Over 80 Years.” Machine

Design, 9 Feb. 2016, www.machinedesign.com/technologies/changes-engineering-profession-over-

80-years.

“Summary.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,

www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/civil-engineers.htm.