Ring Ring. This is Your AI Calling.

“F**k AI. You regurgitate the past. We invent the future.”

So says Jamie Siminoff, inventor of the Ring doorbell cam. It may not have been the opening remark of 3DEXPERIENCE World, but it will certainly be the most provocative.

Clearly, this was not going to be like any other SOLIDWORKS event.

Siminoff may have been responding to ChatGPT, the chatbot that holds the world’s rapt attention. Or maybe his incendiary remark was written months ago.  

“We’re the biggest home security company in the world,” Siminoff is heard to repeat during the first day of the event, a claim supported immeasurably by Amazon, the company that bought Ring for a billion dollars.  Siminoff takes the opportunity to thumb his nose at Shark Tank and all those silly sharks that turned him down.

It appears that every tech conference will have to have a response to ChatGPT – even more than to literally ground-shaking events. What about the Turkey/Syria earthquake which just took 30,000 lives?[i]  But instead, it is ChatGPT sitting front and center in every journalist’s and analyst’s mind.

We are all in the first stage of technology shock, where you worry if this is finally the technology that will replace us. This was true for all except one enlightened analyst, who had reached stage two: how this technology could actually help, by plowing through their knowledge base to answer questions to help new analysts.

Relax, says Siminoff.  If he'd asked, “How can I make something that can message me about who is at the door,” ChatGPT could not have answered.

So, yes, design engineers do still have a job. Technology has only served to replace the replaceable, those doing repetitive tasks. Engineers with creativity and imagination…you still have a future.