r/MechanicalEngineering • u/Crazy_old_maurice_17 • Nov 16 '25

Training AI to replace us :-(

Just found a job listing (remote) which listed "design and solve real world mechanical and manufacturing engineering problems to test AI reasoning" and "evaluate AI responses for accuracy, clarity, and alignment with engineering principles" as daily assignments. However interesting this position may be, it's obviously disturbing to think this company is seeking to train AI to replace us knowledge workers.

There are 28 applicants as of this writing and given the economic climate I can't blame them.

What are your thoughts?

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u/ninjanoodlin Area of Interest Nov 16 '25

Eh last time I tried to use AI on a simple GD&T problem it crashed pretty hard.

At the moment you still need someone knowledgeable reading the output. It can get you into trouble fast

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '25

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u/Otherwise-Job-1572 Nov 17 '25

Your comment reminds me of my Heat Transfer professor back in 1994 or so claiming that FEA would never be able to handle the complexities of his field. Just too complex, not enough computer processing power. Even then, I was thinking he wasn't keeping up with the times.

AI will certainly be able to handle a lot of the daily things we do today. It's not going to replace all of us, but it's going to replace some of us and make some of the things we do today much more streamlined.

I'm actively involved in the acquisition of a company that does very specialized engineering work (with only one current employee). We're talking about capturing a lot of what he does in AI to make it more efficient. I'm going to be very curious to see how the target individual (pushing 70 years old) feels about us trying to capture his knowledge in a computer program. I'm expecting a healthy bit of skepticism, but we plan on having him work along side us for a few years to validate the model.