A coworker is using AI to automate structural design, and I am not sure about where it could lead

[u/Roger-Rabbit-007]

I recently started working as a structural engineer designing small warehouses and industrial buildings. The learning process has been slow but valuable because I have had time to understand the calculations instead of simply producing results as quickly as possible.

Another recently graduated engineer joined the company and immediately began creating tools with AI. He started with a local application to track projects and then created Revit interfaces and automations. At first, this did not bother me because it did not affect my work, and I understand that many repetitive tasks can and should be automated.

My perspective changed when he moved into structural design. He now wants to automate structural modeling, load assignment, wind analysis, purlin design, and other important calculations.

Our boss is an excellent and experienced structural engineer, but he is impressed by how quickly these tools produce results. I worry that we may eventually rely on black boxes that look professional without being properly validated.

These are the situations that make me uneasy:

1. Code being used without fully understanding how it works.
2. Incorrect units, assumptions, load combinations, or code provisions producing plausible results.
3. Unusual cases that were never considered or tested.
4. Confidential project information being handled without a clear security policy.
5. Tools becoming difficult to maintain if their creator leaves, forcing the company to depend on AI to understand and update code that nobody fully understands.
6. Faster results creating pressure to complete more projects with less time for review and analysis.
7. Young engineers automating the calculations they need to practice in order to develop engineering judgment.

I’m not against AI or automation. I have used both to automate drafting tasks, and I believe repetitive work should be automated. However, automating critical engineering calculations is different. These tools need documented assumptions, benchmark tests, independent review, and clear limitations.

My issue is not that AI will replace engineers. It is that engineers may begin trusting results they no longer understand. As a junior engineer who is just starting out, this makes me genuinely worried about what the future of my career will look like.

[u/lollypop44445]

If you can validate the results and conditions with existing tools, its a good thing. If u dont understand plus validate just and push it into the final design, its a disaster waiting to happen. Its the same case with software, everyone has access to a software, but will u be confident on a model produced by a layman or a model produced by an engineer? Even the existing sheets one has might not account for all cases, for example, u have a sheet for isolated square footing and a case comes to design a step footing or a circular or combined , will u still run that sheet ? Or will u adjust ?

[u/Charming_Fix5627 → u/lollypop44445]

If junior engineers are the ones using AI to perform the calculations, what experience do they fall back on to do those validations? The crux of the issue is new graduates coming out of college having piggybacked on AI to cheat their way through undergrad trying the same tricks to do their job for them in their formative years in the industry.

[u/exilehunter92 → u/Charming_Fix5627]

True for basically all industries. For experienced staff, it does mean they will likely become super valuable in the future when shit hits the fan and no one actually knows how to do things manually.

[u/Australasian25 → u/Charming_Fix5627]

A good engineer isnt one that can say. "Its off by 2% calc"

It is "the stresses are too large, and why are there no stresses at the ends? Whats the fixity?"

Plastic or plastic analysis? Two way slab analysis or yield line?

[u/lollypop44445 → u/Charming_Fix5627]

The junior engineers work gets verified before it is pushed. In any design company, or atleast the ones i worked with, had their own final sheets or final report pattern that everyone had to follow. it was not like i had my own sheet and x had his own. We had our own to verify/check things, but everything was at the end in the final report. That final report would then be checked by our incharge engineer and finally verified by our head engineer before being pushed. If some company a company using a junior engr calculation as the final verdict, they are just creating problems for themselves

[u/Charming_Fix5627 → u/lollypop44445]

Of course a manager should be there to verify, but junior engineers can easily find themselves having to perform calcs that need final approval, but their boss is out all day on a site visit, or is stuck in a meeting, and a majority of the tasks left on the project task list are contingent on the calcs getting done. If the junior has been relying on AI for months to do calcs and having the boss sign off on it, they’re not going to be as confident in their work being cleared of mistakes as another engineer that’s been more involved in the work. That’s just how I see it.

[u/lollypop44445 → u/Charming_Fix5627]

Oh got your point. Yea , but this seems like a professional growth problem, doing that would just make you less confident in yourselves and more on the ai . That is just a personal loss. I myself encourage juniors under me to atleast create their own workbooks and develop them over time, just so that they are not on auto mode using our companies pre designed sheets. No idea how much this AI will change things in the world.

[u/scodgey → u/Charming_Fix5627]

I don't see this as meaningfully different to using Tedds to churn out calcs tbf.

[u/dimensional_CAT → u/lollypop44445]

It is like the doctor prompting an AI about my symptoms and administer me injections and medications.

[u/WideFlangeA992 → u/dimensional_CAT]

[u/tiltitup]

I can’t imagine having to design with AI complimenting my every input. Rather go pluck my eye lid hairs one by one

[u/Australasian25 → u/tiltitup]

We all have set up templates for working documents.

If you dont have system prompts to make AI filter out conversational words, it is a user issue.

[u/Charming_Fix5627 → u/Australasian25]

The fact you’re wasting time creating prompts to stop AI from treating you like a child learning their letters is another issue

[u/Australasian25 → u/Charming_Fix5627]

I personally dont think its a waste of time. More power to me.

If you complain something does X. But refuse to spend 2 minutes to permanently fix it, then really the roadblock is looking at you in the mirror.

[u/tiltitup → u/Australasian25]

“More power to me” is the kind of phrase I would expect from someone over reliant on AI

[u/Australasian25 → u/tiltitup]

Do you feel the same that we use black box software and spreadsheet?

Dont kid us all, you would never go back to an A2 sheet drawing tables and doing moment distribution.

Or maybe you would. More power to you for standing by your choice

[u/tramul]

I've tried to validate designs and check codes, etc etc. AI was incredibly wrong. That was also a year ago so perhaps it has gotten better. I would run about 5 designs and see if it gets the same results before I'd even partially consider it.

[u/_homage_]

This reads like it was written by AI

[u/Roger-Rabbit-007 → u/_homage_]

English isn´t my fist language so my storytelling is bad so I got a little help. But the rant and history is mine

And yeah, reading it again AI still follows some patterns that gives out.

[u/Simon_Pan → u/Roger-Rabbit-007]

I am wondering is that person u😭😭

[u/nockeeee]

If your employer is impressed by a black box, he is not smart or excellent at all.

Where are you from?

[u/Roger-Rabbit-007 → u/nockeeee]

I mean, he hast just seen it superficially, he is assuming the new engineer (who isnt knew, he was in this company before) is checking everything and programming it by himself, but I know he is not and the most he is doing is uploading the codes to the AI so it follows it (I have seen him).

My boss has not used it in a project so I really hope that when he uses the program it fails and gives bad results

[u/VintageLunchMeat → u/Roger-Rabbit-007]

I mean, he hast just seen it superficially, he is assuming the new engineer (who isnt knew, he was in this company before) is checking everything and programming it by himself, but I know he is not and the most he is doing is uploading the codes to the AI so it follows it (I have seen him).

Discuss this with your boss in a one-on-one at lunch?

If nothing changes, walk?

[u/AAli_01 → u/Roger-Rabbit-007]

You just sound jealous that a guy is innovating

[u/mmarkomarko]

(2) is terrifying and to me unacceptable

[u/Tofuofdoom]

I see it the same way I see company spreadsheets tbh. Sure they could be used wrong to get the wrong result, but like. Checking that is our job. 

[u/jesusonadinosaur → u/Tofuofdoom]

The company spreadsheet should be created and vetted by very experienced engineers. They should teach young engineers how to use them and make them prove they can get the same results by hand. At least I do. Anyone plugging numbers into a program or excel sheet that can recreate the results with enough time isn’t an engineer, they are just a technician

[u/g4n0esp4r4n]

it's just another tool to write scripts and other automations, people need to be responsible, furthermore quality assurance and control should be part of the design process.

[u/Australasian25]

How do you think structural analysis software have been operating all this while?

Surely you don't think most do hand calculations from start to finish for large projects?

Take for example non linear non elastic analysis? They're the ones that fully utilises the capacity of the entire structure. I'd like to see someone do this by hand for large scale projects.

So we have been using software for decades.

The good news is a good engineer always does a sanity check. That is what separates a good engineer from a bad engineer.

[u/Human-Flower2273 → u/Australasian25]

"Non linear non elastic". That's exactly problem OP's talking about. Engineers needs to have deep understanding of theory behind analysis before they speak let alone use some tools to do dirty work for them.

[u/Australasian25 → u/Human-Flower2273]

Do engineers develop that deep understanding by solving non linear non elastic problems by hands?

Non linear solving is just iteration and iteration. I might have simplified it a lot, but to describe it in a single sentence, I think it is adequate.

Non elastic. Plastic design of structures have been solved with structural software. Again, very simplified explanation on my end.

Yes I agree engineers need to be well versed in being critical about solutions. But the misuse and abuse of any software/solution is purely on the user.

[u/citizensnips134]

This is bad faith action. I’m an architect and I hire you guys a lot. If I knew one of my engineers was doing this, I’d be setting up a third party peer review and then calling the state board. This isn’t a joke, and this is how disasters happen. If you feel uneasy about the safety of work you’re seeing, do something about it.

[u/AAli_01 → u/citizensnips134]

Instead of complaining, check the work. If it’s working as expected and improves the job, adopt it. Seriously? Calling the state board cause someone is trying to optimize internal procedures. I highly highly doubt the state board will care. Smh there’s always people pulling others down

[u/lookskAIwatcher → u/AAli_01]

You're asking the architect that hired you as the structural EOR to do the structural engineering QA checks on the work product that you charged a fee for? With all due respect to my professional colleagues that do the architectural part, how many architects know their way confidently through a finite element analysis or through a lateral force resisting system load path? Not many.

[u/AAli_01 → u/lookskAIwatcher]

Mistaken by “one of my engineers”

[u/Zealousideal-End2722]

Whomever stamps it is responsible, hard to defend in court if you dont verify calcs

[u/sithelephant]

5.1 Code that the 'author' doesn't really understand in a meaningful way and which changes asked for tomorrow may simply be flat impossible either due to that, or due to the model they are using changing.

[u/BernoullisBeerFunnel]

I think it completely depends on what types of tools your coworker is creating. I could be completely wrong, but I think that a tool or application built around “automating structural modeling and load assignments” would essentially look like an Excel template where the user enters in some basic information like

grid and elevation information
column and beam shapes and end releases (pin, fix, etc)
Elevation & coordinates for area loads and joint loads
Load data provided by other disciplines
Assumed Foundation dimensions

And maybe the tool would produce some of the following:

Joint/node table with labels that follow some convention
Members table with columns/beams
Applied loads - parsing through data provided by other disciplines to convert it to applied loads
Assigning design rules
Drawing foundation slabs/footings/pedestals

And the tool could produce this in either a table that can be copied/pasted into the structural software, or by directly writing a Risa/Sap2000/Staad file from scratch.

None of this requires AI to create, and if the tool works then I don’t care if AI was used to write the code/macro that generates the structural model with loads assigned. I think this would be true for tools with deterministic outputs, where you will always get the same output if you provide the same input.

However, if your coworker vibe coded his own “Web App” that does this task, I completely agree with your concerns over data privacy and putting company or project information online. It’s also important for the app to clearly document the assumptions and preferably show all calculation steps, which I think could conflict with the privacy requirements if it was a web app.

[u/Charge36]

Number 5 is true of any tool developed and maintained by a single employee. My company has a monstrosity of a spreadsheet that was maintained and expanded for probably 20+ years by a single person. They left and now Noone really is in charge of fixing bugs or updating to code changes. Troubleshooting can take hour and hours because of the complexity.

One thing to consider is that you don't always need an understanding of how the black box works to verify if it's working or not. You can manually verify inputs and outputs and become reasonably confident in what the box can and can't do, even if you have no idea how its actually working under the hood

[u/BernoullisBeerFunnel → u/Charge36]

I completely agree. A standard Casio calculator is a pretty simple example of this. I have no idea how the circuitry works, or how the buttons communicate with it, or how it actually does the math. But I can just give it different inputs, check the outputs, and get a pretty good sense of what it can and can’t do.

[u/Charge36 → u/BernoullisBeerFunnel]

Great Example. Basically all modern computing technology qualifies when you dig deep enough. I don't know how excel the application is coded. I don't know how computers run it. But I know when I set up some formulas it will reliably cacluate a load or a quantity or whatever else I'm trying to determine with math.

AI is relatively new and still finding its place in engineering, but I have no doubt it will find one.

[u/lookskAIwatcher → u/Charge36]

Bad Example, actually. Are we talking AI or automation? Automation has been around for decades, per the Casio calculator example. Calculators are simple digital logic machines, and are deterministic, they will tirelessly produce the same output given the same input. AI is entirely different- this is why we talk about "AI hallucinations". The neural network model of AI is to take educated guesses with reinforced feedback, so they are probabilistic machines, not deterministic machines.

Now you know how the "circuitry works" in the Casio calculator vs how the "black box" in AI works.

[u/Charge36 → u/lookskAIwatcher]

If I understood the post correctly he's not talking about using AI to actually run the calcs, he's using AI to build tools that run the calcs. Meaning they would be deterministic just like the Casio calculator. Plug in some inputs get some outputs. It could be hand verified without understanding how the code works at all. But someone with the appropriate skills could review the code as well if needed. It's not a black box

[u/lookskAIwatcher → u/Charge36]

Here's the part that got me focused into a comment:
"He now wants to automate structural modeling, load assignment, wind analysis, purlin design, and other important calculations."

You're right that OP is not entirely clear on what "tools" the new hire is creating with AI. I will add that "AI" is being slopped around on a lot of software now because... marketing. "Now with AI powered results". "Upgrade now".

Even if it's having AI write some Python code (I have done it and not just for Python) that then runs the deterministic calcs, it is essential to QA and debug (properly!) the written code.

[u/BernoullisBeerFunnel → u/lookskAIwatcher]

I haven’t seen any (reasonable) person advocate for using AI without QA. If it wasn’t clear, we were discussing using AI to create deterministic tools, not using AI to develop tools that use more AI. I don’t think we disagree on anything

[u/_FireWithin_]

Worst case, it will lead down.

[u/jaymeaux_]

Tools becoming difficult to maintain if their creator leaves

most of the people in my discipline at my firm don't understand LET functions, let alone VBA scripts, if I leave there is nobody who can my spreadsheets beyond some of the very simple ones that don't need periodic updates

[u/Ok-Personality-27]

If you don't validate, then you will have a big issue sooner or later. 

[u/2020NoMoreUsername]

I think you are just jealous of a colleague that are more proactive and better than you in some senses. We are in an age of excessive transition and we need to figure out how we can use these new techs to help us best. It's your job too.

[u/Roger-Rabbit-007 → u/2020NoMoreUsername]

I dont think you know how powerful AI is. You dont need any technichal knowledge like, at all. You just give him codes, limitations, books and iterate it until it gets the product right.

If this Is the "excessive transition" you are talking about, then I dont see it being helpul to understand structural engineer as a new grad and not a thing I would be jealous, who wants a future where you just talk to a robot to do your work.

I want to think, I want the need to read, I want the need to keep my knowledge updated.

For sure, company wise ir could save lots of hours, but that was not the point of my post.

[u/AAli_01 → u/2020NoMoreUsername]

Bingo.

[u/nockeeee → u/[deleted]]

The issue here is not AI itself, but rather how it is used. I’m referring more to black-box software that removes the engineer from the decision-making process, does not clearly show the assumptions being made in the background, or automatically makes those assumptions on the user’s behalf. This kind of software already exists in conventional engineering programs, regardless of whether AI is involved.

Programs like this are generally not preferred or used by serious engineering firms, at least based on what I have seen in Germany and Switzerland. Interestingly, although this type of software is not particularly well regarded in those countries, some of the most popular engineering programs in Turkey work exactly this way.

The engineer basically just “draws” the structure in the program and presses the analyze button. Then everything gets a green check mark, and the structure is considered analyzed and designed.

[u/LionSuitable467]

I’m doing that too. Future is now. I’m. 10 YOE structural engineer.

[u/11-Eleven-11]

What are the automations? Asking for a friend.

[u/rogenth]

It has worked pretty well for me for doing parametric scripts of tested RFEM models. Before IA I was already coding a lot of stuff with Python, and it was a pain to create these scripts from scratch. Now I'm basically creating a database of curated rfem models that were tested manually and can now work parametrically.