Hello, my name is Kristina Youngblut! I have been an Autodesk Expert Elite member for two years and have been contributing to the Autodesk Community Blog for a couple of years. On the Community Blog, I often publish Revit tips and tricks and discussions about standards, implementation, or workflows. I'm generally focused on bringing people together, reducing workflow inefficiencies, and providing a safe and encouraging environment for everyone.
What has most surprised you after attending your second AU?
What surprised me the most was how many people experienced the same issues I do in my everyday workflow. When you're working, you're often siloed off from everyone and just trying to get through your day. You're just trying to get your project out, and sometimes you can feel alone. It can almost feel like nobody understands what you're dealing with. AU provides an opportunity for everyone to connect and realize that we all genuinely have similar issues, even if we aren't working on the same project. So, let's get together, connect, and create an environment where everybody feels safe.
How do you stay connected with a community of your peers?
So, I do a lot on the Autodesk Community blog, but I am also on LinkedIn. I always share my information with the Autodesk community. I ensure I'm taking and providing the appropriate information to help people find that content. I now have contacts across the globe, and we stay connected everywhere on all platforms. We're all working together on similar projects, just on different teams. I might be facing a problem, but I can reach out to a friend in England and ask, "Hey, have you experienced this too?" I've created actual friendships by contributing to the Autodesk community. I don't care where people come from or what they've done. It's just about knowledge sharing back and forth in a community.
What inspires you to share your knowledge with the wider community?
So, up until about 2019, I worked in content aggregation doing parametric design. I would go online trying to find help for the topics I was working on but couldn't find the resources and the information. I always felt alone and isolated because it seemed people weren't doing what I was doing at that time. So now that I have an opportunity to share that information, I don't want other people to feel that same way. I want them to go somewhere and be able to find help for their problems. Even if I'm not fixing the problem, maybe I can help inspire them. We are all like-minded individuals trying to learn and grow together. So I would like to contribute to that because that's what I feel this is all about.
It's like a way of paying it forward?
It is because, honestly, when I'm creating content, I'm not creating it just to help you and to help you solve your problem. The goal is not for you to take what I have done and replicate it 1:1, but rather, I'm looking for you to take bits and pieces of it and create your own beauty out of it. Then, hopefully, that person creates something for others in return. I'm always looking for a way to evolve and grow; there's no better way to do that than to share knowledge with others.
Do you currently leverage any AI or generative design tools in your workflows?
So, yes, I do. Currently, I am building a Revit app and a dynamic "Scout" manager for Product Manufacturers. The Scout search manager allows people to select any product they want and get all the parameters and values based on real-life manufacturers and products. The entire database is generated and manipulated with AI technology.
We've also created a Revit app with a library of over 8,500 generic products based on Omniclass '23 and '21. For this project, we taught a language model to develop the parameters and values required as a generic base for those 8,500 products. So, I incorporate AI as much as I can, but I don't use it to do my work. I use it to help facilitate and enhance. I use it as a tool.
How do you ensure the ethical use of AI when you're designing and making anything?
I don't unquestioningly trust it. I make sure that the information that I receive is still reviewed. Nothing is copied 1:1. I still go in, validate the information, and clean up at least 60 percent of it, but that's fine. At least the base is there as a place to start. It gets initialization off the ground, but that doesn't mean that AI will define my work. I'm just using it to help propel and push my innovative ideas forward. So, the worst way to use AI is to think that it's going to do all your work for you and that you can become lazy. AI is not 100 percent correct, so you're mistaken if you think AI means: "Oh, I don't need to do this anymore. AI is going to do it for me."
I once asked an AI tool to create a LISP routine for AutoCAD, but it kept giving me different results. I copied and pasted the exact prompt and got a completely different list routine on each of my four attempts. All of them were different. So I plugged them in, and only two worked, and two didn't. So you know, it's not perfect. I don't, I don't consider it the end-all solution. I just consider it to be an enhancement tool to support you in getting your ideas flowing.
How would you like to see AI develop in the future?
I would like to see it evolve to be slightly more sophisticated. AI tools are eventually going to get more stable with time and learning. It'll never be perfect because it's not actually intelligent. There's also the problem that people are putting a lot of garbage into it. You can dilute its language model very easily. I don't see it becoming a perfect replacement anytime soon, or at least not while I'm alive. But I would like to see it help people perform their jobs more easily and ensure that what they're doing is correct without revisions, markups and stuff like that. I want to see it as a support tool, not as a replacement tool.
Finally, do you think you'll be coming back for future AUs?
Yes, even if I have to pay for it myself! AU is like coming home. You're going to meet people who experience the same problems that you do, and all of a sudden, you won't feel like you're alone anymore. There are always resources and a community out there for you.
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*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.*
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