I am not doing the 3.6 FORM deal

[alebrewer]

Mid-Century Retro is a whole different thing. Old.... but... $$$$ highly desired in some places. I had a guy the other day say he's designing his kitchen around his 1969 built-in oven because it is awesome! Works great! American Made back in the day. Many modern major appliances have disappointing useful life PLUS big price tags.

All of my 'small' appliances are old school. GE hand mixer, Waring blender, Mr Coffee tea maker, Corningware coffee percolator, etc. LOVE the vintage quality and look.

 

[alebrewer]

You are thinking the right way about this type of tooling. Instead of "sky is falling, I'm an entitled geezer and going to retire before learning new things!", you are thinking how can these things help us do a better, more efficient job.

Also, right now the leading AI for image recognition is Gemini 3, it's crazy good (2.5 is as well). at image classification. Give it a try and ask it to approach as "an appraiser doing an inspection".

I haven't broken it to George Dell and his group of folks, but I took his course on R introduction in March. It's already WAY past its useful life. No R or Python knowledge necessary (although some level of coding understanding is prolly useful). Created an html dashboard yesterday to analyze neighborhood data sets. Took about an hour - and that's just cuz I'm still a novice. This stuff is insane.

 

[cashcatz]

You are thinking the right way about this type of tooling. Instead of "sky is falling, I'm an entitled geezer and going to retire before learning new things!", you are thinking how can these things help us do a better, more efficient job.

Also, right now the leading AI for image recognition is Gemini 3, it's crazy good (2.5 is as well). at image classification. Give it a try and ask it to approach as "an appraiser doing an inspection".

Here's a cool tool for blind-comparing different models at how well they can parse PDF documents (which is quite a challenge). This sort of thing alone is a HUGE time saver when integrated into workflows/tooling. PDF are so prevalent but getting data out of them in a reliable way has historically been a PITA.

https://www.ocrarena.AI/battle

(manually type in lowercase AI as AF uppercases it for some reason)

 

[cashcatz]

Here's a cool tool for blind-comparing different models at how well they can parse PDF documents (which is quite a challenge). This sort of thing alone is a HUGE time saver when integrated into workflows/tooling. PDF are so prevalent but getting data out of them in a reliable way has historically been a PITA.

https://www.ocrarena.AI/battle

(manually type in lowercase AI as AF uppercases it for some reason)

I haven't tried yet with this, but my challenge that OCR always failed with in the past is the comp comparison page on a 1004. If any of these models can parse that with full accuracy, we have arrived.

 

[alebrewer]

We were testing PDF OCR technology 20 years ago. Kinda surprised that piece isn't further along.

 

[J Grant]

Mid-Century Retro is a whole different thing. Old.... but... $$$$ highly desired in some places. I had a guy the other day say he's designing his kitchen around his 1969 built-in oven because it is awesome! Works great! American Made back in the day. Many modern major appliances have disappointing useful life PLUS big price tags.

You do realize the irony - the guy is probably spending tens of thousands of $ designed around a 1969 built-in oven!! That oven will be replaced with a chic retro-style ( new) oven the minute it breaks. This is a far cry from an old kitchen with dated appliances - it costs a lot of money to look on trend retro - with modern convenience and tech often hidden behind the retro design.

 

[cashcatz]

You are thinking the right way about this type of tooling. Instead of "sky is falling, I'm an entitled geezer and going to retire before learning new things!", you are thinking how can these things help us do a better, more efficient job.

Also, right now the leading AI for image recognition is Gemini 3, it's crazy good (2.5 is as well). at image classification. Give it a try and ask it to approach as "an appraiser doing an inspection".

And I should clarify: I'm pro employing AI for very specific tasks which it is good at to assist with, in the appraisal process (just like any tooling which needs to be vetted). But NOT do things like make adjustments, attempt providing an option of value and the other black-box nonsense some (AMCs cough cough) and VC funded vaporware pushers are promoting.

 

[alebrewer]

And I should clarify: I'm pro employing AI for very specific tasks which it is good at to assist with, in the appraisal process (just like any tooling which needs to be vetted). But NOT do things like make adjustments, attempt providing an option of value and the other black-box nonsense some (AMCs cough cough) and VC funded vaporware pushers are promoting.

Yeah, I think that's what turned me off the AIVRE product. Early on (not sure if it's still the case) they were touting a workflow of 'push button, get report'. If the appraiser's value truly is in their ability to perform analysis, then that value gets stripped by software offerings like that.

 

[cashcatz]

Yeah, I think that's what turned me off the AIVRE product. Early on (not sure if it's still the case) they were touting a workflow of 'push button, get report'. If the appraiser's value truly is in their ability to perform analysis, then that value gets stripped by software offerings like that.

It was when I first looked at their product a year ago but fwiw their latest demo seemed like a pretty traditional process but web based, and the AI was really not even AI, but pulling in public data (from what I could tell) and pre-filling a lot of the stuff we used to have to copy and paste in. But disclosure, I was a commercial appraiser so might be missing things regarding resi.

 

[Alsie35]

You are thinking the right way about this type of tooling. Instead of "sky is falling, I'm an entitled geezer and going to retire before learning new things!", you are thinking how can these things help us do a better, more efficient job.
*SNIP*

Hey Cash, care for a hot cup this morning?



(I'll lift one in your honor at Cafe Latino during our annual 3-month Summer Vacation in the Mediterranean next year and shed a tear for y'all who still have to work for a living! Maybe you can join us one of these years - who knows? )

Seriously - between you and the poster you were replying to, you have actually answered the question for me of how AI can make the "3.6 Abomination" workable - SOME DAY in the future, in the hands of a much younger pair of eyes that can twirl an idiot phone around while those of us who have earned a permanent vacation enjoy ourselves ...

C'East La Vie or ... "A Man's Got To Know His Limitations" ...