Toward a generative AI-augmented design era

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Toward a generative AI-augmented design era
Philip F. Yuan 1* With the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the relationship between humans and machines has become a significant concern.One view suggests that AI will possess subjectivity: Matias del Campo emphasises that, unlike traditional tools that teach machines how to perform, artificial intelligence teaches machines how to learn (Campo, 2022).According to him, AI has the capability and awareness to recognise the world; Neil Leach et al. argue that AI will replace the majority of architects, resulting in widespread unemployment (Leach, 2021).Other opinions hold that AI is unconscious, incapable of thought, and identical to tools such as cellular automata machines, parameterisation, etc.According to Mario Carpo, the data-driven AI employs iterative optimisation to solve problems, which must be quantifiable and amenable to optimisation.Therefore, AI's role as a tool is limited to measurable phenomena and factors (Carpo, 2023).
The arguments above could be slanted due to their extreme positioning.Technology is not an emerging civilisation that will replace humanity, nor is it a tool manipulated by human hegemony.Seemingly, AI is gradually demonstrating analytical ability and creativity, bringing vital "vision" to humanity by extending the human body and consciousness.Shiqiao Li believes that while algorithms have become lifelike in their capability to generate original information, they would constantly produce misinformation and entropic acceleration (Li, 2023).If we are to reverse this rapid acceleration towards entropy, algorithms must be like biology in all its aspects including truthfulness and negentropy.However, artificial intelligence does not possess the mechanisms that enable emotion and awareness, nor the moral and algorithmic architectures of information exchange; to realize the life and truthfulness of AI, humans must inevitably guide its subjectivity.Consequently, AI and human intelligence should aim to achieve cross-border overlaps to reverse entropic acceleration, such as mutual complementarity, expansion, and enhancement, becoming interdependent entities.Rather than insisting on the opposing qualities that stand for the difference between human and machine intelligence, accenting the possibility of their compatibility could enable the singularity of future machine intelligence.From the intelligent auxiliary design to the intelligent augmented design, the machine enhances the architects' perception, thought, and imagination.The paradigms of creativity sourced from the symbiosis between humans and machines manifest how AI expands the field of architectural knowledge in the post-human era.
The reconfigured subjectivity of the human-machine symbiosis will drive the iteration of the system of architectural knowledge.Artificial intelligence will empower design thinking, leading to three revolutions: inspiration design, customised design, and augmented design.First, AI technology inspires the creative paradigm of design thinking and alters the strictly human practice towards a co-creative authorship of software; Second, AI technology introduces the customised architectural intelligent generation paradigm and reshapes the generation process of the design concept from the perspective of data, model, process and evaluation; Third, the AI technology improves the capacity for perception, analysis, decision-making, and feedback relating to the system of architectural knowledge.The current technological advancements provide a substantial reason to analyse and discuss the transformation of the architectural design paradigms prompted by the symbiosis of biological and machine principles.The post-human era will have new ethical and aesthetic possibilities due to proactive and adequate knowledge of pairing AI deduction and architectural design reasoning.
The envisioned authorship output of the hybrid architectural design is anticipated to involve exploring the exclusive AI-augmented design platforms by individual architects or architectural design institutions.In establishing an AI-based design platform for individuals, existing knowledge and experience can be gleaned, while the unique and personal characteristics of the entire design process could be enhanced.The AI-augmented architectural design approach requires a specific data system and the development of a training model.A user-based generative algorithm can achieve heightened correspondence between AI and design thinking.The AI model trained and configured by the architect will stimulate the architect's perception, analytical ability, imagination, and creativity.Simultaneously, the continuous reciprocity will enable an animated architecture of the post-human era.
The customised model described above can be achieved by establishing the Artificial General Intelligence foundation.The purpose of the FUGenerator is to provide a trainable Artificial General Intelligence to the architectural design platform serving users of various affinities.Throughout the development, it would be essential to establish an in-depth discussion on how an open-source and share-based community might interact.It is of the utmost importance to establish the open-source sharing principle, to form the organic social community of the industry-college-institute cooperation, and to integrate it based on the human-machine collaboration system while considering the existing principles of BIM and their updates.In addition to producing design geometry and information-based models, the knowledge-sharing principle should contribute to expanding architectural knowledge.The new architectural research and development community must vigorously explore the design platform's efficiency, accuracy, and standardisation.
As a new paradigm in architectural design, AI improves architects' ability to visualise and design virtual spaces.However, to what extent would it be essential to incorporate AI into constructing physical spaces?AI is still in the phase of generating pixel images and voxel point clouds.Envisioned development of intelligent designs which focus on vectorisation and 3D visualisation will enable interventions based on the intelligent construction process.The seamless connection between intelligently generated design and intelligent machine construction will completely subvert the construction industry's production patterns.Architects will engage beyond the design stage with the production process within the construction systems focused on integrating AI and robotic fabrication.The post-Leon Battista Albert era, marked by the separation between design and production, will require an extensive reconsideration of architects' responsibilities and the division of labour.It could be argued that the present disruption to the domain of spatial design is the necessary starting point for the development of a new theory, one that is focused on the extended understanding of the intelligent construction industry.
Analysing the seeming ease with which the artificially generated idea appeals to the contemporary user or the inviting fascination by the capacity of code to create might lead to more questions than answers.The technology could be seen as both a cure and a poison to mankind, a double-edged sword.Will the thought emanating from intelligent tools destabilise the dominant characteristics of human creativity?Can humans create lifelike algorithms and technology that produce truth, reversing entropic acceleration?The French philosopher Bernard Stiegler suggests that "technological knowledge is pharmacological, that is, it has the ambivalent structure of a pharmakon: it is always at once potentially beneficial and potentially harmful" (Stiegler, 2011), it appears that the development of human civilisation is currently inextricably linked to the attempts to establish a firm definition of the relationship between the natural and artificial.In the era of duality of the AI and the human mind, we must understand the implications of the post-humanist decisions so that the revolution within the architectural profession can grow on a solid foundation.