I am so excited because my new artificial intelligence (A.I.)-powered estimating software was installed today. When I purchased it, I asked about training. The salesman said I would not need any because the A.I. could answer all my questions. Upon launching the software, the A.I. introduced itself and told me its name was HAL. I asked HAL if it was joking, to which it replied, “I do not have a sense of humor.” (If you don’t get the reference to HAL, see the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”)

Problems pop up early

Next, I asked HAL to create a project, Job No. 2450, named Genel Pump Station, with a bid date of July 2, 2024. It replied that it could not. I waited for a few moments for HAL to tell me why. It never did. Eventually I had to ask, why not? HAL replied that the job number was illogical, as it had to start with 1. I had read that A.I. needs training, but this was a basic function of an estimating system, and HAL was not cooperating. I explained that I used a job numbering system that is very logical. The first numbers are always the last two numbers of the year. The second two numbers are the consecutive count of jobs, starting with 01 (e.g. 2401). I told HAL to access my current job list and read me the last job number I used. He replied 2449. I then asked the A.I. if it could comply with my project creation request now. It answered, “I suppose so.” The way HAL said that made me think about renaming him Marvin. For that reference, see the YouTube video, “Best of Marvin (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).”

 Since this was an industrial project, I decided to start by listing the feeders. I asked HAL to open the phase “feeders” and insert 30 comments. All I got back was “insufficient data.” I asked HAL where it got that from, and it acknowledged Star Trek was its favorite TV series. I figured the A.I. needed step-by-step instructions. I told HAL to access the phase tree, select the phase “feeders” and insert 30 comments. Voila! That worked, sort of.

HAL created 30 comments with the word “comment” in them. After thinking for a moment, I asked HAL to undo the last command. The comments disappeared. I then asked it to create 30 blank comments. You guessed it, HAL created 30 comments with the word “blank” in them. I asked HAL to undo the last step again. 

After pondering for a few more moments, I asked HAL to append 30 comments. That worked, but it got me wondering who was being trained here. I was learning I had to be very specific, and use the exact same words contained in the program’s menus.

Necessary training

It was time for a call to tech support. I told them this A.I. needed more training before being sent out to the public. The agent told me they gave the A.I. all the training they could, as each customer would use their own particular language. If the company fully trained the A.I., it could become confused by each estimator’s specific language. I wish the software salesperson had told me that up front. Then I would have set aside time for training the A.I. when I was not in a time crunch.

Now I was slowing down to think before every command. I asked HAL to add the following text to the comment on line one: MSB to Panel A. It replied that MSB was not a word. I had to explain to HAL the electrical construction trade commonly uses initialisms such as MSB instead of spelling out phrases such as main switchboard. 

I instructed HAL to insert the text I requested without question, and that I would make corrections if something turned out to be incorrect. HAL accepted that but advised me the construction of the sentence was incomplete. HAL went on to say there should be something in front of MSB. I explained estimators use jargon to make the data entry faster. If I typed out the entire sentence in a comment, it might say “Run a conduit from MSB to Panel A.” That is four extra words that need to be typed. If I were typing in 100 feeders, that would be 400 extra words, which is time consuming.

HAL then asked what size and type of conduit is required, to which I answered the information will be in the next comment. HAL accepted my input and entered the text. I could see this was going to take a while.

By the way, HAL was offended by this article.

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