Insulate Magazine Issue 17

www.insulatenetwork.com
Artifical Intelligence
and the Insulation industry
Jamie Street Lead Creative at Insulate Network
What impact will Artificial Intelligence have on the Insulation Industry? From
insulation products and manufacturing processes to installation and performance
it’s exciting to speculate how Insulation will be affected by Artificial
Intelligence. By Jamie Street
Everyday Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence has always been a fascination
for me and for many I’m sure. From Terminator and
Robocop to i-Robot and Westworld, the prospect of
a world populated by robots is common in Hollywood
and all forms of visual entertainment.
In the UK we have already had the pleasure of
self-service checkouts for almost a decade. Amazon’s
Go 1 has seen the first introduction of “no lines, no
checkouts”, giving customers in the U.S unprecedented
shopping freedom. In Dubai they have recently
launched their first “robotic cop” to handle smaller
workforce duties. Whilst In Japan and China we are
already seeing the rapid replacement of humans on
the factory production line, with the long term goal of
replacing human labour altogether 3 .
Whilst Artificial Intelligenceis often seen as the “future”,
there is no denying the future is upon us.
Vision for the Future
A recent article from construction enquirer 4
discusses Balfour Beatty’s vision for construction
sites in 2050. Balfour believe the majority of work will
be done off-site, work will be completed by robotic
cranes and diggers overseen by drones. Construction
materials will be dynamic and capable of self-assembly,
on-site humans would wear exoskeletons to
improve performance whilst others would be deployed
off-site to monitor drones and cameras from afar.
Terms like “offsite”, “drones” and even “exoskeletons”
are more than familiar in todays vocabulary, so this
picture for 2050 is already materialising.
Paul Forrester’s 5 “offsite” feature in issue
15 of insulate magazine and the
signifiant presence of offsite at
ecobuild this year is
just the tip of the
iceberg.
26