What Is the Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence to the Architecture Profession? – Archinect

Artificialintelligence could potentially help us streamline the morerudimentary and tedious aspects of design to free up more time forcreative problem solving and response to human needs. It would beunreasonable to say that any AI that we could conceive in our lifetimewould be able to intimately familiarize itself with the breadth ofhuman experience to allow it to make accurate determinationsabout the things we need. Oftentimes the things we need are rooted inaesthetics that are meant to facilitate our emotional well-being orthey are otherwise rooted in cultural lineages and traditions thatare difficult as yet to quantify.

Itis obvious that with more precise data, and with the use of moreintelligent software, architects and designers will be able toenhance their work in many predictable ways such as optimizingbuilding maintenance and security, streamlining BIM workflow, andincreasing the sustainability of a design through more accurate environmental analysis.Having said this, I feel that the notion of having better toolsallowing you to do your job better and faster is not necessarily worthdiscussing. What is of interest is whether or not improving thesetools will eventually make their very users obsolete by becoming theusers themselves. From this, it's important to consider what makeshumans particularly useful (as users of these tools).

Whatmakes a thing intelligent is not only access to data but also theability to identify connections between disparate pieces ofinformation and use those connectionsto solve problems to develop intuition. The way we identifyconnections between bits of data as humans is by working withincertain logical frameworks that allow us to create a relationshipbetween things that would otherwise feel random and/or arbitrary. Forexample, one such framework is cause and effect. You know not to lookdirectly at the sun because it hurts your eyes when you do that. Aconnection was drawn between the action and the subsequent pain thatinformed the newly-developed behavior that followed.

Architectsspend several years developing skills that give them a heighteneddegree of spatial awareness. Beyond that, many are also skilled atbridging gaps between their lived experience, their ability toidentify sociocultural cues and traditions (humans are particularlyskilled at this because we are the only species that placessentimental value onto objects, as far as our current understandinggoes) and their technical skills in order to come up with cleversolutions to a specific set of problems. For better or for worse, adesigners individualism seeps through when they make decisionsthat influence the emotional impact of space using their livedexperiences their memories as a basis.

Forthe same reason that it is difficult to imagine fully relating toanother human being because your lived experiences are fundamentallydifferent, it is difficult to imagine how digital intelligences wouldbegin to develop a sense of ego and then use that to make aestheticchoices about a space. If that were to happen, the point wouldessentially be moot because we would come to a point where it wouldbe redundant to distinguish between supposedly "real" humanityand a synthetic one. It wouldnt bea matter of asking what the future of architecture and design lookslike under the influence of AI because AI would not exist humanintelligence and artificial intelligence would essentially be thesame, and so any useful distinction (those that look beyond thepedantic notion of humans being made from organic matter as opposedto AI, which is created with synthetic material) will probablycease to exist. Would AI eventually reach a point where designersbecome obsolete? Probably not until we reach a level ofsophistication with AI that is indistinguishable from our owncomplexity, but in that case, it wouldnt be a matter of AI vs.designers, it would simply mean that there are more designers.

Anexample of how AI is already integrated in architecture can be seenat The Bartlett, wherein their space syntax software "depthmapX" can generate accurate spatial analyses that remove the need toactually visit the site.Granted, there is as yet no way for such a software to tell you, forinstance, how a certain place "feels" or how culturallysignificant certain elements at a site are, but any physical orspatial data that can be quantified is still perfectly fair game.This not actually limited to just environmental analysis. In much thesame way that analytics companies gather our social and behavioraldata to essentially generate profiles on us to create more successfulmarketing campaigns, in an architectural setting, this data can beused to democratize development. With this data, software may be able to prioritize certain projects, calculate population growth andcategorize streets or neighborhoods by usage and density (and thenfurther categorize those things into time of day).

Still moreinteresting integrations of AI in architecture can be seen in aninstallation called Ada as part of Microsoft's Artist in Residenceprogram. Ada is a pavilion that incorporates AI to generate aperformative environment based on analyses of its users. Itcollects data from facial expressions and vocal tones and translatesthat data into certain colors and materials based on specificsentiments that it perceives from this data.What it becomes is this vehicle for a uniquely responsivearchitecture that allows designers to expand their conceptualizationprocess to encompass not only what a certain building or space mustbe but also what it couldbe. The question that arises here is how this data is beingperceived and translated by the AI and who programs it to perceivethings in this way and these things are determined by a variety ofcultural and social biases. Perhaps the challenge will come fromattempting to get the AI to understand certain illogical humanbehaviors that are rooted in cultural stigma such as Americans' preference for private vehicles over robust public transportationnetworks and infrastructure. Logic isn't standardized becauseculture and experience inform a person's idea of what is logical.

Thethreat is actually posed not by artificial intelligence itself but byusers who deem AI to be a cheaper, more efficient means to an end. Aswe are encouraged to indulge in our consumerist tendencies, we becomeless concerned with creating spaces that we can emotionally connectto and see ourselves in and more about acquiring material things. Inthis case, it is about acquiring four walls and a roof as quickly and efficientlyas possible. While it is indeed possible for architectural firms toadapt to this and begin implementing AI technologies to help themfill in gaps in their output (such as Ada or depthmapX), largercompanies that have an edge in gathering data (especially if thatdata is deemed proprietary) will have negative influences on thecompetitive environment of the field.

Inorder to prevent the consolidation of an immense amount ofdecision-making power in the hands of a small group of alreadyresource-rich entities, architects and designers should aim toliberalize pertinent data so that anybody can have access to them.Data sets should be available for public use and perhaps managed byan international body. We see this occurring more and more frequentlyin the design world through the emergence of open-source programs,plans, and data such as Wheelmap, which is an urbanism platformdesigned to help people identify and share accessible spaces aroundthe world. Decentralizing design in this way may prove beneficial to society asa whole by giving more people greater access to quality design that ismost often reserved for people with the capital to access the finestpieces.

Sebastian Errazuriz has a rather bleak albeit realistic perspectiveregarding the impact of AI on the architecture industry. Approachingit purely from a brass tacks perspective, architects are largelyexpendable mainly because they take a lot of time and resources toget equipped with the skills needed to become architects. Beyondthat, the level of coordination between all these different entitiesmakes it so that it's normalfor projects to take 2, 3, or even 10 years to finish. How could anyof that possibly compete with a program that is unbiased andunburdened by ego, that can learn anything in a matter of seconds,and that can communicate and coordinate with other equally egolessprograms with complete fluidity (more fluidly than we can evencommunicate with our own selves). His suggestion is that architectsshould take their advanced spatial awareness and apply it in a techlandscape wherein they would apply their skills more abstractly todesign other kinds of systems.

Aswith almost every other profession, architects are on the precipiceof a reckoning with their roles in society moving forward. This ismainly due to the fact that we recognize that AI isnt just a tool it has the potential to eventually surpass our ability to doanything. What is particularly new about this is that it will causeus to fundamentally re-evaluate our relationship with our labor, andwhat our role in society will be if our ability (or even our need)to work is taken away. While it may not necessarily be a matter ofthe utmost urgency, it would be prudent for architects to reflect onhow they can synthesize the more intangible aspects of their skillsets in order to be more equipped to navigate these rapidly shiftingenvironments.

More here:
What Is the Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence to the Architecture Profession? - Archinect