AI Has the Information. Experience Knows What Works.
Artificial Intelligence is altering the way people learn; it is now possible for someone to ask about bathtub refinishing, surface preparation, coatings, spray equipment, reduction, adhesion, or troubleshooting and get a detailed explanation in a matter of seconds.
However, it is also presenting a new problem for the refinishing industry: when people have access to professional information, it can make them feel as though they possess the same level of knowledge and experience as someone who has been carrying out the work for years. But knowledge and experience are not the same thing.
AI Isn't the Problem
AI can serve as a very good educational tool since it is able to explain terminology, compare various processes, help a person to understand coating chemistry, suggest ways to troubleshoot problems, and introduce them to techniques which they might have never come across before.
Trouble arises when information is regarded as absolute.
AI is fully capable of producing incorrect information when the subject matter requires a great deal of context and expertise. That is something that experienced refinishers thoroughly understand: context is important.
In the process of refinishing, context can make all the difference.
There Is More Than One Way to Skin a Cat
If you ask five experienced refinishers about the way they deal with a particular situation, you will probably get five different answers.
One refinisher might employ one method of preparation such as etch & epoxy, while another could use a different process such as clean & adhesion promoter and still obtain an equally durable result.
Neither is necessarily wrong.
That's because refinishing involves variables that don't always fit neatly into a universal answer:
- What is the substrate?
- Has the surface have been refinished previously?
- Which coating system is being used?
- What type of spray equipment is being used?
- What is the temperature and the humidity?
- What level of experience does the person applying it have?
If you alter one of the variables then the best recommendation may also change.
Even though AI might offer a method, an experienced refinisher will be able to judge whether or not it is the right approach for a given situation.
Information Is Not the Same as Experience
Picture reading a great deal about the process of refinishing bathtubs.
You can find out about equipment, pressure, fluid adjustment, fan patterns, overlap, flash times, reducers, temperature, humidity, and film thickness.
You would definitely know more than you did before.
Would you then be ready to go into the bathroom and coat a tub tomorrow and get the same finish as someone who has been spraying for twenty years? Unlikely.
Why is that? Because experience is missing.
What you learn through experience is hard to put into a paragraph: for example, how the coating should appear as it is being applied, when it's necessary to make adjustments because of the environmental conditions, how far you can push a product, and how to spot the early signs of a problem before it turns into a failure.
"But AI Told Me..."
Refinishers are going to hear some version of: I asked AI, and it said...
The wrong response is:
"AI has no idea what it's talking about."
Sometimes AI can be wrong, but in some cases the information given to the customer is entirely genuine.
The better response is:
"Yes, that is one way of doing it, but this is why we recommend using our coating system."
That changes the conversation.
You are no longer debating who is correct, since you are incorporating into the original question something that AI cannot possess, specific application context and real-world experience.
That distinction matters.
Manufacturer Recommendations Matter
A method of preparation which works very well with one suppliers product might not be necessary when applied to another.
This rule holds true for etching, primers, adhesion promoters, application methods, film thicknesses, flash times, and cure schedules as well.
General advice is therefore technically unsuitable for the product in question.
With regard to a particular coating system, the technical information provided by the manufacturer and the recommendations specific to the product should be regarded as very important.
Professionals Shouldn't Be Threatened by AI
There is another aspect to this discussion.
It would be wrong for experienced professionals to ignore customers just because the customers have used AI to carry out their research.
A customer who asks detailed questions might in fact be showing something worthwhile, they simply want to learn.
This is an opportunity.
Rather than attempting to show the customer that they don't know as much as they think themself to do, provide an explanation of the reasoning for your recommendation.
That method may work; but this is why we take a different approach.
The information is generally right, but there's another factor that needs to be considered. That's typical for that coating, but the system we're using has been designed differently.
The fact that those responses show expertise at the same time as avoiding offence.
What distinguishes a well-informed refinisher from someone who just has access to information is that.
AI is Not a Substitute for Experience
There's no difference between reading about refinishing and actually refinishing it.
Watching videos is not the same as refinishing.
There's no equivalence between reading about coating chemistry and figuring out a failure on a jobsite.
There's no equivalence between obtaining an answer from AI and having years of experience to know when that answer is appropriate.
At the End of the Day
The fact that AI has greatly increased access to knowledge is a positive development.
However, knowledge, judgment, and experience are three distinct things.
The most skilled professionals aren't those who think that there is only one right way of getting a task done; rather, they are the ones who understand the reasons why different methods work, when they do work and when they don't.
Therefore, whenever AI provides a customer with a different response, you shouldn't simply reject it.
Maybe it's wrong.
Maybe it's right.
Or perhaps it's just another way of achieving the same result.
It's here that experience comes into the discussion.
For more articles like this visit our Blog. If you want to join other like-minded professional refinishers to discuss process, visit the Facebook group Resurfacing Contractors Network.
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