25 February 2022
On the Role of AI/ML in Engineering Research
A talk given to the Dept. of Civil Engineering, Monash University, 25 February 2022. Abstract: Is AI/ML just the latest fad in engineering research, or is it the game-changer its proponents tell us it is? To answer this we should understand what AI/ML is, what it can do, and see how this fits with the goals of doing research. In this talk I’ll ask those questions, and outline some answers. Along the way, we’ll discover what makes human intelligence so special, and why it is so hard to replicate. Our goal is to properly contextualize the capability of these modern tools within the outcomes we seek. In doing so, we can then draw distinctions between applications of AI/ML that drive insight, and those that simply wallpaper over the cracks in our understanding. At the end, some good books are suggested, as is a Call to Action to the community of engineering research professionals. Speaker Bio: A/Prof Colin Caprani is a Chartered Structural Engineer long noted for his curmudgeonly take on all things trendy. Skeptical to a fault, he has missed out on every research trend since his engineering research career started in 2001. His time as a professional structural engineer helped to imprint a desire for engineering research to be a driver for improvements to practice for societal benefit. Nevertheless, he is cosmopolitan, and will use any technology or tool that makes this happen, from structural reliability, structural health monitoring, structural dynamics, bayesian modelling, and even touching the psychology of decision-making. He famously does not use Excel. Lately his interests have evolved to assimilate the Jaynesian view of probability as the logic of science, and he enjoys contributing to open source software tools as a means of accelerating progress in bridge engineering.