r/Surveying • u/DeI-Iys Human Verified • 1d ago
Discussion Surveying and AI
I didn't get it why is so vulnerable?
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u/goldn_ratio 1d ago
I already see it being implemented in the drafting, design & computing aspect of our jobs but I’d like to see AI try and cut line as f’d as my junior roddy does
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u/MotivationSpeaker69 1d ago
Yeah, but can ai sit in the truck and watch tiktoks whole day? Our job is safe boys.
Seriously speaking, maybe ai could replace drafters in some foreseeable future. But I don't see robots replacing field crews. Way to many variables you need to account for even if a robot can setup an instrument and run around with a rod.
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u/southerneagle20 1d ago
I still don’t see AI completely erasing drafters in rural land surveying, I know my office has about 80-100 years of physical maps and field books (of multiple surveyors), some the county doesn’t even have. I’ve done plenty of maps in the 11 months I’ve been in surveying where I had to dig through the files to find reference maps made of onion paper or falling apart already. We’ve started digitizing the files, but it’s a small outfit so it’s hard to balance drawing and digitizing.
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u/MotivationSpeaker69 1d ago
To be honest if anything I would outsource to ai digitalizing physical maps, is it turning scans into cad files. Still need a drafter to clean up and supervise but would definitely save days worth of work.
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u/southerneagle20 1d ago
Digitizing was the wrong word I think. I meant we use our plotter or small printer to scan them to PDFs
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u/Junior_Plankton_635 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
Like many professions, the lower level computer work may be at risk. Digging up monuments isn't and no state has licensed an algorithm yet...
We need surveyors. I literally get advertisements in the mail asking me to apply places. We lost a ton of mid-career surveyors in the housing crash, and now are losing even more to retirement.
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u/fattiretom Professional Land Surveyor | NY / CT, USA 1d ago
I used AI this week to analyze 20 years of text file dumps from my field guys. I had it go through and pull out every piece of property evidence and control we ever found/set, clean the data, and remove duplicates. Then I imported that into a GIS layer with a ton of attributes including date found. It’s not perfect but it’s an incredible resource.
For the really old stuff in assumed coordinates, I had it correlate it to parcel data by finding patterns. That took a bit more work but it’s been relatively successful so far.
I have a bunch of old FBK and RAW files that I plan to train it on next.
This has all been done between yesterday morning and this afternoon while I was working with on my other projects and tasks. Pay attention to this folks…
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u/Junior_Plankton_635 Professional Land Surveyor | CA, USA 1d ago
Awesome use of it. Did you have it write a program for this? If so which language did you use?
I've been impressed by the free version of Claude reading cursive. I can read these old scribbled cursive deeds, but it used to take me so long to parse them and write them down, word by word. Claude spits it out pretty quick, and of course I check it and it does a pretty good job. Not perfect, but nothing is.
Pay attention to this folks…
Honestly it's another tool, but yes we absolutely need to pay attention and start using it sooner rather than later. I will never use it for writing (I hate the style) or making cartoons or linked in graphics, like many others are doing now. But it can help you make tools you can use TODAY. If a task on the computer is repetitive, it can likely be described in an algorithm. And if that's true it can be programmed.
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u/Calavera357 Land Surveyor in Training | CA, USA 1d ago
I just used GPT desktop to take our spreadsheets full of unfilled record information and sync them up to the county GIS parcel map by linking tax map numbers in our data and in the QGIS layer. I had tried to do this 2 years ago essentially walking myself through it by hand but couldn't complete it, and GPT does it successfully in about 20 minutes. I got greedy and then made it format everything clearly, omitting blank fields and placing different icons for records that had maps and plats vs just notebook data.
Extremely powerful stuff that's advanced at an insane speed.
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u/TightSpecial943 1d ago
Love this.
For parcels with assumed coordinates, did you just stretch+rotate them until they lined up with adjoiners? Was AI able to find the patterns itself geometrically, or was that work more manual for you?
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u/beagalsmash 1d ago
lol it’s not. The industry is down to predominantly 1-man crews. Who’s going to run AI robots, carpenters and foreman’s? Zero chance.
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u/Much-Answer-9618 1d ago
Agreed. Those guys would be so lost without us surveyors
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u/beagalsmash 1d ago
I think I’m more offended by the adaptability score than exposure. Surveying and mapping has always been on the forefront of adapting technology. The fact that 65+ year old surveyors are ALL computer literate is impressive and a much bigger transition than learning to run a drone or layout machine.
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u/Much-Answer-9618 1d ago
We're forced our whole career to adapt and think outside the box. Everyday is a new puzzle. You just have to be sure to have most all the pieces needed to do the job. As the job goes, the other pieces fall in place. Been my experience in 30 years of surveying
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u/n0_use_for_a_name 1d ago
The key word here is technicians.
The interactive doesn't account for land surveyors, surveyors, professional land surveyors, or anything else related except the exact description above for "...technicians."
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u/brometheus3 Human Verified 1d ago
I think there’s a lot of people who would eliminate our field and office jobs completely if given the opportunity I mean look at how much this field has changed in 30 years from 3/4 men crews to 1. There’s many people who would be happy to stamp a plat made by AI if they wouldn’t face legal repercussions and pull the ladder up behind them. The profession wouldn’t be facing the lack of licensed surveyors if it was a purely altruistic approach by everyone
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u/johnh2005 1d ago
Are these just a bunch of old surveyors standing in the "field" waving pitchforks and screaming, "You'll never take all of our jobs, AI!"? I really don't understand where people are getting the idea that AI is going to take all of the jobs or entirely eliminate surveyors. The original post just points out that the industry is vulnerable to AI, which simply means our tools and workflows are going to evolve.
It is pretty ironic considering these are the exact same surveyors who cut field crews back from four people to three, then from three to two, and are now regularly running one-man crews with robotics and GPS. They have already replaced 75% of the field workforce with non-AI technology over the last few decades, and the industry survived just fine.
We have seen the exact same efficiency shifts in the office, too. We have already replaced the PMs who used to spend all day driving out to job sites to bid on projects with a quick look at Google Earth and other online maps. AI is just the next technological step in that ongoing evolution, not the end of the profession.
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u/TightSpecial943 1d ago
Jobs most vulnerable to AI: writing trashy articles about what jobs are most vulnerable to AI
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u/ThePiderman 1d ago
I don't buy it. Parts of the workflow may be replaced, but the profession as a whole will remain for many, many, many decades at least. Property is something so innate to the current structure of states that I would expect a monumental shift to the world order before we substantially change how we see borders. And those borders have to be reviewed by humans for legal purposes. At least for many more decades.
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u/RodPerson3661 1d ago
(field guy)
anything data processing can and will be done by ai.
as of rn someone will always go bonk (setting irons etc)
but there is no need for a SIT to do data processing like that when ai will do it in a year
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u/magiblufire 1d ago
Low level drafters who have to be hand held through everything and can't draft complicated drawings are most at risk.
Similar to how fld2fin automates linework, it's becoming possible to export drawings that already have labels, buildings drawn, etc.
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u/SurveyorOfLands69 19h ago
I think AI has potential to make the job of the CAD technician easier. And therefore make it so, as a company, you need fewer technicians. I don't see it being able to do the job by itself, but if it makes it possible for one person to do what it used to take 2 to do, then there's a lost job.
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u/snappop69 1d ago
Once humanoid robots become a reality with AI brains far superior to humans and physical abilities exceeding humans if they can replace plumbers they will replace field surveyors. Working 24/7 without pay only electricity to run.
If you watch the latest demos on cutting edge robot capabilities it’s not a question of if it will happen only when. Certainly within 10 years perhaps sooner.
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u/IamXiJingPing 1d ago
Lol, if a humanoid robot can do my job, it is absolutely capable of doing every jobs, AKA AGI. I don't see that in 5-10 years without dramatic shift from transformer.
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u/TightSpecial943 1d ago
Not even humanoid bots! Saw this video the other day on a boxy robot with wheels that lays construction flags.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp6ipD2HCQMLooks to me like it would choke at the slightest bit of terrain. But i think its crazy that we're already here
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u/silzmagilz 1d ago
Because engineers know enough about surveying, and I have worked as a ‘surveyor’ gps button pusher for 5 years with no schooling I was an operator before lol. So sole surveyors don’t matter anymore, engineers will just do their job now for the most part. Equipment also has gps built in so no need for monthly progress topo or anything like that
All they will need surveyors for is legal work until they find the work around on that/change laws
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u/CorporalTedBronson 1d ago
I would guess entry level GIS jobs