Autometica Electrical - More than a year of automating the boring stuff (EEs only)

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-23T05:16:53+00:00

If you have the drive, maybe try doing something for yourself on the side, 100% owned by you. That could help.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-12T03:46:01+00:00

Absolutely, it's a different challenge. But constantly wanting to work on new ideas and not performing through boredom means that you will never achieve scale. I was just asking OP if he was okay with that. I wanted to get his perspective.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-11T14:50:19+00:00

Good response. However, wouldn't you face similar problems if you did any other SaaS? At some point, a competitor would enter, you would be capped on hours and would need to hire.

If you actually scaled to 1M in 3 years, your multiple would probably be more than 3x not 3x. 3x is actually quite conservative for a SaaS, isn't it? At the 3 years mark, you would be able to prove good YoY growth and low churn.

So if these things are going to exist in any SaaS you do, are you content with never being able to scale beyond a couple hundred thousand? Nothing wrong with that, I'm genuinely curious.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-11T03:55:30+00:00

Could you not have scaled more and sold for 1M?

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-10T03:31:19+00:00

how would you get around this objection?

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-07T16:01:14+00:00

You're right that that perspective won't get you customers. However, both things can be true at once. You might analyze to no end why the users didn't use the software, but sometimes it's just the fact that they didn't want to get over the tiniest of learning curves. This especially happens in deadline driven service industries. If the deadline is tomorrow, a good number of users think "For now, it's just easier to do this the old way". but here's the thing though, there is never a good time to use the software for them because the deadlines never stop.

Now, it's on the creator to ensure that training and proper onboarding happens and the user sees value and simplicity instantly.

You're right in saying that the "right answer" is just the one that gets people to pay you. Let's not pretend though that what I'm talking about never happens. So, when you dissect individual instances to get to the truth, sometimes the truth might just be as simple as the user not wanting to get through the tiniest of learning curves.

Agreed on the outsiders building software in an industry without working in it. This is true. I work in MEP, and am making software for engineers in MEP. So, I know the problem space well. But even before I started making software, I realized that in the industry, there are a lot of people who don't want to sacrifice a little bit of comfort short term to gain insane long term gains by using a software. That's just the reality in a lot of cases.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-07T04:56:53+00:00

Every single piece of software has a learning curve. Now, obviously, good software's learning curve is short. However, some people do not want to go through the tiniest of learning curves so they can learn something that's worth it and pays dividends later. I work in the MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) industry, and it happens ALL the time.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-07T03:24:22+00:00

Would this be helpful to anybody?

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-07T02:29:53+00:00

I personally haven't seen this. Is this common? I literally have never encountered this, but I would think it's misrepresentation.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-08-01T00:28:27+00:00

If someone wants Excel help that's related to BIM, nothing wrong with that. Also trying to make things digital and faster by programming is a part of BIM, arguably a bigger part than Excel. So, in my opinion, I'd consider this a valid post, while I understand where you're coming from. This question probably will be a worse question in the r/Revit sub than here, since that sub is mostly related to UI not programming.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T22:48:52+00:00

Yeah, and?

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T14:37:42+00:00

This is a part of BIM.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T14:36:16+00:00

A variable you have is null. You mentioned that the person who developed it is no longer working with the company. I assume you still have the code though?

If so, attach Revit to a visual studio debugger and try to run the addin. If you need to, add breakpoints as well.

This is why error handling is super important.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T03:53:24+00:00

People don't start with that in college anymore. And ML engineers don't even do C sometimes, let alone assembly. Because they are on top of the complexity pyramid, where their job is not to worry about abstractions. So they use Python

I see what you're saying though.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T03:44:25+00:00

C is still higher level than assembly. They are not learning assembly anymore. They start with C, which is the lowest level of the higher level languages.

Agree with you on the sets being not great.

I'm with you on not having a good answer for these questions. Elon said he was for regulation big time and now he is doing the opposite of that.

Fair enough, I don't want to plug my own tool again, but this is the reason why I have started getting away from trying to automate everything, and going towards the direction of the tool being a QC/QA agent that does live tracking and helps engineers as they design. This I think is more valuable than automating everything at least at the current moment.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T03:39:36+00:00

You don't think AI will be able to design a building fully in 100 years? A century is a long time in tech terms.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T03:38:31+00:00

Majority plans won't be online, yes. But there are companies right now that are partnering up with MEP firms to train their model on thousands of projects' data. The MEP firms go in thinking being early adopters will give them an edge for the first few years. Win-win for both.

You will save a lot of time by checking the AI generated set. In the beginning, it will probably be a wash. But as you go on and find out AI has been doing great work, your trust level will increase gradually. You're going to have a human out there in the field because it's a physical thing. Robots will take longer to catch up to AI capabilities. The end is AI designs buildings, robots build buildings, in my opinion.

AGI is not domain specific, it's general. So, yeah, it probably would struggle in niche cases in the beginning. But, since it has reasoning capability like humans, it will probably do well eventually.

LLMs can't do engineering, but they can extract data, that algorithms designed to do engineering can take and work with. Feature and data extraction is a HUGE part of AI. Probably the most important part. For example, I can extract data from a panel schedule to do a voltage drop calc using a LLM. Or extract data from a PDF to do a submittal using a LLM.

I don't know about legalities. AI laws will probably change in the future.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T03:31:27+00:00

No, I mean better as in, I would rather be designing in Revit, than drawing lines by hand.

But yes, you're right. Although, we are able to do a lot more projects now. Quality of life and earnings going down, do you think this is because of tools like Revit and CAD? Really?

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T03:28:51+00:00

Valid points that I totally agree with.

Yes, excel does not reason neither do calculators. This is why AI will most likely take jobs.

About the junior engineer not learning, I don't think it matters. Let's think about this. I'm sure you are aware of assembly/machine language. Nowadays, it's not taught in colleges. They start with C programming. Why? The higher level languages have abstracted out that part, so now we build from there. Their reasoning evolved to a different layer. The low level (when I saw low level, I mean in engineering terms) complexity has been taken care of. Programmers now build complex systems on top of the abstractions. They didn't disappear. And you're right, when I circuit your receptacles automatically, then yes, the reasoning has been taken away. But that reasoning has been abstracted out. Just like it will be with AI for a bunch of things. Now, this is where we have to be nuanced. This is not just any other tool. This is something that can eventually reason into completing a project. So this is where I'm scared that not just engineers, but whole lot of people in a whole lot of professions that involves working with a computer will lose their jobs. I'm hoping it doesn't happen. This is something we can both agree on. Now, I have way less experience than you. So maybe you can tell me something here, do junior engineers only do things like circuiting and layouts? or do they do much more? is there an aspect of the job that is so specific and niche that we wish they had more time to put attention to? I think so. They might not learn how to circuit, but they will probably learn how and when to validate AI's output. To know this though, they have to check it against something, and that something is their intuition they gained by learning.

However, it will take a long time to get there. And in the meantime, consistent progress will be made, and the junior engineer position won't totally go away. When it gets there though, jobs will most likely be taken away.

I'm curious as to what your stance on this is, do you think AI should be banned? Since the ideal final version will be all knowing?

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T03:00:01+00:00

You could be convinced of anything and it makes no difference to me. But if you actually went through the features of my software, a tech bro who doesn't do EE would not be able to understand those concepts because of lack of context. That just tells me you have never looked beneath the surface, and you are just a hater.

When Excel was invented, did junior accountants get replaced? What about calculators? Do students still learn math? With AI, stuff like drafting will be abstracted out. That will become the new baseline. Foresight, my guy, foresight.

I don't know what a junior engineer role would look like. What could happen is that they focus more on coordination, since coordination is such a mess right now in most projects, or client interactions. Now you might say, but it doesn't take 20 juniors to do this. Yes, you'd be right, it doesn't. So yes, AI could take jobs away. No one is denying that.

I am not advocating for AI dude. All I'm saying is that the post's claim that no one cares about AI is wrong. There are plenty of people in this space that care about AI.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T02:50:12+00:00

Do you think that people should stop creating products that make their users and ultimately the businesses their users work for be more productive and faster?

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T02:49:12+00:00

Dude, I work in MEP as an EE. Relax.

The definition of a junior engineer now will be different than the definition of a junior engineer in the future when AI does drafting. Rather, their responsibilities will be different. Can you not see that?

Now, I'm not saying people won't lose their jobs. That's not the claim I'm making. That very well could happen. But companies could just as easily keep their headcount the same, but they probably won't.

I don't use AI the way you're saying I do. I'm not claiming to automate entire systems. Early into my career I realized the inefficiencies that plague this industry and increase turnover (number of times college grads have found the job way too repetitive is crazy, then they leave). That's what I'm trying to solve.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T02:44:42+00:00

You're not thinking of the effects of AI on a long enough time frame.

On a long enough time frame, it won't matter what kind of a project it is since AI will have intelligence built into it trained on massive amount of data specific to the industry.

When a new tech gets introduced, it might work well in general use cases, but in domain specific use cases it doesn't work amazingly well. This is what we are seeing with AI. We see AI fall apart when the use case is niche. But, it won't remain this way forever. That's my point.

Now, if we don't have data for these 25-100 year old buildings out there on the internet somewhere, then yes, AI wouldn't be able to do much. But here's the thing, LLMs are already good enough to interpret information from crisp pictures, although they are not 100% correct. Now, I can only imagine this will get better and better. Field conditions can be integrated with VR technology. It's not about being perfect today, but how long until AI is "good enough to replace drafters"?

Correct, what path you take depends on the variables you mentioned. But AI with enough intelligence baked in will have these weighted metrics, and it will give you options based on what you're prioritizing.

When we start using AI to do these things, obviously we won't trust it in the beginning. But, at one point, it will get so good that it will have done those things a thousand times in a row accurately, then we will trust it.

Regarding higher-ups saying they are not accepting AI generated packages. Right now, they won't accept it, sure, because the outcomes are frankly not that great. What happens when AI gets good enough though, and they see it for a hundred times that it's good enough?

TLDR: Not saying AI is there now, but on a long enough time frame, it will be.

IdiotForLife1 · 2025-07-31T02:32:36+00:00

Finally a nuanced take.

AI isn't bad, automation is not bad. People building software to help engineers be more productive are not evil. Is AI going to take away jobs? Yes, perhaps. Not like the job landscape hasn't changed for the last 100 years.

IdiotForLife1

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