Artificial intelligence has arrived.
This technology presents civil engineers with great opportunity but also the responsibility to lead on AI’s effective and responsible implementation.
“AI is going to generate changes in civil engineering practice,” said Yinhai Wang, Ph.D., P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Washington. “So, our question will be: Do we want to follow the changes, or do we want to lead the changes?”
Civil engineers across disciplines are already using AI tools in their work, and these technologies are improving rapidly. But the industry hasn’t settled on a consistent AI strategy.
That’s where ASCE’s AI Roadmap for Application in Civil Engineering, or AI RACE, comes in.
The roadmap serves a noble purpose: to push civil engineers to the forefront of AI innovation. Having a strong roadmap allows civil engineers to take charge of the technology to maximize innovation and unlock the full potential of AI.
“There is an urgency that the community, particularly modern researchers and practitioners, need to work together how to deal with this new thing; it's going to be another technology revolution,” said ZhiQiang Chen, Ph.D., M.ASCE, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The proposed AI RACE roadmap identifies key pillars related to the implementation of AI as well as short-, medium-, and long-term goals designed to shape the way civil engineers approach AI. The roadmap will amalgamate ideas surrounding AI from across the civil engineering field to create a consistent vision for the future of AI in the industry. It considers AI applications and outcomes, ethics and responsible use, strategies for preventing silos from forming, and scaling the technology.
The roadmap will enable civil engineers to plan, set tangible goals and timelines, and address concerns with responsible use and oversight, and it will define the leadership role that ASCE can play in addressing the far-reaching impacts of AI.
A wide range of subject-matter experts convened at the ASCE AI Roadmap Summit, Aug. 31-Sept. 1, to share information, workshop ideas, and polish AI RACE as it heads toward release.
ASCE plans to publish the roadmap this fall and prioritize key areas for immediate implementation.
“I do believe (this roadmap) will be highly important for civil engineers and very beneficial to not only our civil engineering society, but also everybody that we serve,” said Wang, who chairs the AI RACE advisory committee.
“(AI) has arrived in civil engineering; it's going to generate a huge impact,” said Wang. “Whether we're aware or not aware, it’s already here with us.”
Here to stay
Many civil engineering organizations have already integrated AI tools into their technology arsenal.
Mohsen Zaker Esteghamati, Ph.D., M.ASCE, an assistant professor of structural engineering at Utah State University, has seen a variety of use cases in structural engineering.
“AI is being used in a lot of automation, whether it is in design, assessment, using a surrogate model for complex simulations, or in decision making and risk assessment,” he said.
In Wang’s lab, AI is used to collect quality data using machine learning models, identify moving objects on roadways, and predict moving directions to minimize crashes.
Hao “Frank” Yang, Ph.D, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering, also views AI as a useful tool.
“There are a lot of valuable applications in real-world systems, for example, object recognition and computer vision tasks, traffic surveillance cameras, and auto vehicle perception systems,” he said. “Construction monitoring and road surface concentration monitoring rely on cameras inputs, and we're doing classification, detection, and tracking tasks to generate outputs that can help human beings make better decisions.”
Chen noted that companies are also integrating chatbots, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, at the enterprise level.
“Engineers are using prompts every day,” he said.
Many companies are also using AI to accelerate workflows, but there is still plenty of debate over what should be automated and what still requires a human touch, said Chen.
Discovering the future
Although are still significant, and often controversial, questions surrounding AI, experts are optimistic about its future.
In its current state, AI has demonstrated that it can be a helpful tool for civil engineers. And it is expected to evolve.
Yang highlighted three major areas where AI could grow: data collection, the ability to use civil engineering tools, and construction robotics.
Zaker Esteghamati believes that AI integration will free up more bandwidth for civil engineers to innovate.
“By automating and taking care of (tasks), AI will give us more opportunities to be creative, to discover, to explore, and to achieve things that were not possible even a few years ago,” he said.
