I am very much not a fan of the current “AI” trend. (The use of scare quotes is easy to explain: the phrase Artificial Intelligence should, in my opinion, be reserved for programs that can in some way show an original thought. The Large Language Models that are currently so popular are closer to being very fancy autocomplete.) One of the few uses for which it might be appropriate is summarizing large amounts of data, although as I explain below, it still requires natural-intelligence review.
A trend on LinkedIn over the last week has been to use the coauthor.studio Rewind service to summarize your LI posts for 2024. The service is pretty clearly using AI to sift through your LI profile and posts and then present a summary. In my case, my LinkedIn posts are mostly links to posts on our company blog. Here’s the highlights “card” as it was sent to me:
A few comments:
- I dispute the word “authority” as I claim none other than my work experience, and there are plenty of people with good experience.
- I am technically not a preservationist, as I have no formal training in the field and focus on engineering rather than formal issues of preservation. I am certainly adjacent to a lot of preservation and that’s way too subtle a point for AI.
- I had 367 blog posts published in 2024. I’m not sure why that got the round-number treatment and the number of reactions did not.
- The top quote isn’t a quote, it’s the title of a blog post. That was not the most popular post on the blog – The Last of the 71st Regiment Armory was – but maybe it was the most popular on LI?
It’s not a great sign that I have four substantive criticisms of the card, but the text that was provided with it is more interesting:
Here's my 2024 LinkedIn Rewind, by Coauthor.studio:
Engineering old buildings isn't just structural analysis—it's archaeological detective work, where every load-bearing wall tells a story.
2024 was a year of uncovering those narratives at Old Structures Engineering, expanding our understanding of how historic structures breathe and evolve.
Key moments:→ Continued leadership in preservation engineering, taking on increasingly complex landmark restoration projects
(snip)→ Successfully expanded our team's technical capabilities to tackle more nuanced structural challenges
Three posts that captured our technical exploration:
Best Commute Ever: Finding unexpected engineering beauty in everyday preservation work.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7212047100933476352/Look, Ma! No Hands!: Demonstrating how technical observation reveals structural insights.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7187404949121630209/An Obvious Issue: Sharing field observations that illuminate broader preservation principles.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7196464447257722882/
Looking ahead to 2025: We'll continue pushing the boundaries of preservation engineering, treating each historic structure not just as a building, but as a complex system with its own architectural DNA.
#LinkedInRewind #2024Wrapped
The text is acceptable, mostly, although it’s a bit too marketing-speak for my taste. But the “snip” is where the AI really badly misunderstood a piece of my resume, and I’ve removed it rather than spread misinformation.
So, as a first draft, it was okay. But, given that it would have been deeply embarrassing had I sent this summary to LinkedIn without editing it, I think I’ll continue to hold off, maybe for decades, on allowing AI anywhere near my engineering analysis or design.
You must be logged in to post a comment.