The last engineering profession to be replaced by AI

There is a lot of talk about Artificial Intelligence replacing humans in all aspects of work. The bottom line though is that AI has a long way to go before humans are out of the work equation. Some might argue that at some point we might merge with AI and become better professionals ourselves.

However, AI will lend many professions obsolete in the next twenty years. These will be professions that are repetitive, that require little or no thinking, professions that rely on big data, professions that do not require creativity or a gut feeling.

Human engineers will face automation challenges but I anticipate that we will be around as a profession for atleast the next fifty years. From all the engineering professions, geotechnical engineering will likely be amongst the last to be fully automated.

Why you ask? Well because geotechnical engineering is an incomplete science that requires a lot of judgement, big data will not be widely available, and even if we tested all our soil at project sites we would still face uncertainties and have incomplete knowledge.

So if a prospective student asks ... geotechnical engineering will likely be the last profession to be replaced by AI.

If you want to find more about Geotechnical engineering, checkout the GeoInstitute by the American Society of Civil Engineers at: https://www.geoinstitute.org/