In 1962, the world’s first automation robot was deployed. Since then, employees of the manufacturing industry have decried their jobs being taken by robots. These robots were celebrated by comptrollers and environmentalists for their savings to the bottom line. The white-collar worker was happy.
Fast forward to 2023 where, almost every minute, artificial intelligence is unsettling a new class of workers. Move over white-collar creatives. AI is coming for your job.

Or is it?
Many in the creative industries fear what are the widely unknown and misunderstood capabilities of the various AI virtual brains out there. Companies wishing to capitalize on the benefits of AI are creating jobs for which there are no qualified contenders. Ever heard of an AI Prompt Engineer? This is basically someone who will get paid to know the right way to boss around the AI engine, to put it bluntly. This is because the people wanting to utilize AI don’t even know how to make it work. Imagine being given a spaceship and not having any training. And unlike KITT from Knight Ryder, AI, in its current existence, can’t offer you any advice.

This means your job is safe… for now. Self-aware AI is predicted to exist sometime in the future. Currently, however, AI is like a mockingbird. If you teach it a song, it’ll sing that song on repeat. It can’t write its own music. Similarly, AI is trained on facts, figures, illustrations, descriptions, product information, etc. It’s limited to recognizing patterns and mimicking what it has been trained on or learned.

AI cannot create.
Because AI can only regurgitate work it has “seen,” the US Copyright Office deems that no work created by AI is copyrightable. What does this mean for me?

First, the creative’s biggest fear is becoming obsolete. At one time, a tabletop draftsman was the first to be denied a job because they could not operate AutoCAD. Later, an AutoCAD expert missed out on an opportunity for not being proficient in Revit. This has mostly affected people working with or wishing to work in large contract-only design firms. For the rest of us, our challenge is accepting people’s obsession with AI and the expectation of instant gratification today’s technology offers.

The rise of visualization technology and subsequent loss of imagination development has resulted in a higher demand for not only 3D representations of project design but also ultra-realistic presentations. Fortunately, much of what is needed to create these photo-real presentations is accessible. Even more important, it doesn’t take a college degree to learn.

3D modeling
The industry standard for single-family homes and small commercial structures is SketchUp. This software is easy to learn with a built-in instructor that makes learning the commands simple and intuitive. The instructor for each tool features simple animated graphics which demonstrate how each tool is used. To be successful in using Sketchup, you only need to know one unforgiving rule: Group or start over.

Another benefit to SketchUp is its price tag. SketchUp has a free web-based version with full modeling capabilities. The full desktop version is available for download via a subscription program. The cost for one user is around $350 annually.