Keep AI Out of Skilled Trade Authorization
Unhappy-Bunch-4594 · reddit · 2026-07-16
This post breaks down the output of "AI for work" in skilled trades into four distinct responsibilities:
- Observe: Extracting structured information from photos, audio, fault codes, and sensor readings.
- Retrieve: Looking up manuals, maintenance records, and known failure modes.
- Recommend: Suggesting diagnostic steps or probable causes.
- Authorize: Deciding if equipment can safely return to service, closing a work order, ordering expensive parts, or making commitments to the customer.
The author argues that the first two categories typically save time; the third requires evidence; and the fourth is where probabilistic systems most easily introduce safety, warranty, and liability risks. A safer approach is to let AI handle gathering and organizing evidence, ensuring all recommendations show sources and uncertainties. Actions with consequences must be confirmed by a technician, fully preserving raw inputs and human decision logs.
The core takeaway is that the key isn't just "what the AI says," but whether the provenance is clear. Rather than just outputting "Compressor failure: 82%," the system should display the fault code history, relevant manual sections, counter-evidence, and what to test next.
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