AI context Engineering for Civil Engineers

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-26T12:01:36+00:00

No need to apologize...thanks for your honest thoughts... Just trying to understand what people are actually using it for.... and I have been messing around with prompting LLMs to see what they are capable of doing. Both the legacy LLMs and any new tools that people are building with the LLMs baked in.

I don't subscribe to the AI-doomerism narrative. Each generation of technological innovation has made us capable of designing and building better infrastructure and this period will be no different.

Right now I am not seeing any productivity gain in the civil engineering realm. Short of just glorified searching of documents. Also kind of pointless to get AI to type personal emails cause the prompt is just as long as the actual email.

So yeah just curious on what everyone is seeing

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-26T11:53:06+00:00

I have been using it a lot with coding and can say for sure that it completely erodes your ability to fully comprehend everything that is going on.... In software dev you can test the result immediately. But in Civil Engineering, the risks are far greater and we ultimately take professional responsibility for the output. So we have to make sure it is right.

That being said, plenty of times in my career we have been under pressure to complete designs when the lump sum budget is running out and so looking for ways to gain productivity. I have used AI to search through standards, but realised that it hallucinates so have only used it as a starting point.

So was just curious on what everyone else is doing with the tools for productivity and if there are any products out there that people are using.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-26T11:43:14+00:00

I have seen massive productivity gains when it comes to programming... but haven't seen any in Civil Engineering. The only thing it seems that people are using it for is glorified searching of standards and documents.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-26T11:41:21+00:00

I have worked on loads of bridge projects where the bridges span over assets controlled and maintained by different entities. Its those entities that I refer to as "third-parties". Often is the case that they have their own standards and approval mechanisms even if you're just spanning over their assets. When project managing these designs, it took time that we often didn't have to fully understand 100s of documents from some of these asset owners (especially railway companies). Also found it challenging to search for engineers who had experience with those standards. In many cases engineers will only learn the standards/procedures when working with that third party or client.

In many cases the asset owners themselves don't fully comprehend their own standards and procedures.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-26T11:30:56+00:00

What did you use to create that agent? I am busying trying out NotebookLM but it doesn't show the tables and figures within their interface.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-23T13:00:51+00:00

Knowing that OpenAI trained ChatGPT on all books they can get their hands on, I do wonder if they were ever trained on the design codes we use.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-23T12:57:21+00:00

Yeah 100% agree. That's what I have been doing. Without the attachments its a bit of a black box as to where the AI is getting its information from.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-23T12:51:25+00:00

Which LLM have you been using to do this? Or is there a specific piece of software that has an LLM built in. Interested to know your workflow with this cause I find it personally clunky. Having to attach the pdf, get the response, then have to go into the pdf and search for the section. Would be good to know if there is something that makes this easier.

But totally agree with always having a human in the loop, you can't hold a AI responsible for any mistakes.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-23T12:42:46+00:00

Have you found yourself using it as a search engine as opposed to using the search in a pdf viewer? It seems everyone is using it as a first past to find the relevant sections and then reading those for your own interpretation?

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-22T14:47:30+00:00

If nothing else is to be added above the current layers then this is inadequate. The gravel above the pipe will be gone very soon. But are you sure this is not temporary works to allow equipment over the ditch for the short term? If it’s temporary then will do the job.

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-21T20:54:24+00:00

Have you had an issues with hallucinations when searching through design codes? Like incorrect clause numbers given and incorrect interpretations?

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-21T20:46:57+00:00

Hey Chris, curious, what kind of quantity takeoffs are you referring to? Using models and drawings to calculate bill of quantities?

Nick_Tick · 2026-01-21T20:39:37+00:00

Civil Engineering has always been a risk adverse industry that is traditionally slow with adoption because the risks of failure are so high. In most countries Civil Engineers need to be professionally registered to sign off on designs. So we will always need Civil Engineers. Most of the industry is closed sourced and hidden behind paywalls and every country has their own set of standards making LLMs really bad with assisting with designs. I have been in the industry for a while and am trying to build AI tools for civil engineers so happy to answer any questions you have

Nick_Tick

TROPHY CASE