Fellow Sages,
I was at an interesting lecture last night. Phil Bernstein (formerly of Autodesk, now at Yale) was speaking (in Lawrence, Kansas, at the U of Kansas) about AI and design/AEC ... you may know that he authored the 2022 book, Machine Learning, about AI and the AEC field.
Phil has a very interesting posture about AI ... he's both an enthusiast and a skeptic. Regardless of one's views, AI is here and coming, so the AEC / built environment community is dealing with it, working with it, and will be moreso of both in the coming years.
I was taken with one key point he made, in response to a question posed by BNIM's Laura Lesniewski about using AI for climate action in design (she asked it well, so I'm glad she beat me to the punch):
Phil suggested that "we" (the AEC / built environment community) need to let tech know what we need and want in the way of AI supported tools. Moreso, he noted that vendors (like Autodesk, where he worked for years) are compelled by coherent input from key sectors. He also noted that the AEC sector is not well known for such coherent input ... but that perhaps a coherent whitepaper request, asking for certain types of tools (informed by understanding of what might be possible, etc.), and signed by, say, hundreds of firms (ideally cross disciplines) could be compelling.
This is something that we might be able to spark / find funding for / organize / incite ... and it seems to me that this is important. It is not my personal expertise, but I suspect that we could engage with a few groups (such as the Tech and Practice KC at AIA if they are still active ... the subgroups at LFRT ... and some of the tech savvy sustainability leaders at firms who are already on this edge) to unfurl some kind of approach. The whitepaper might have to be funded, in order to be specific enough to be meaningful.
Thoughts? Perhaps someone is already working on this. To be honest, I was surprised that Phil was not; he would be a good advisor to the project if he were willing. I know him a little, and chatted with him after the talk.
Kira
- Either we work on this problem or we get it worked on for us.
- The big issue is Data. We need to collect data, manage it, keep it up to date and Architect's just don't do that.
- Lawyers collect case history and keep it in managed file systems
- Doctors gather info.
- Architects haven't historically managed their data in a similar way.
- Can the industry declare in a coherent way what we need AI to do, we could help the tech companies get somewhere fast.
- He really stressed with us that they (the tech companies) are going to tackle this. if we tell them what we want, they will factor that in. if we give them zero suggestions, they will just do what they want to do, and they aren't generally informed on what we need to do.
The SC Design Group studied this topic for us and when you have a group of people that self identify as "designers" they do the prettiest presentations. What they came up with was amazing - an animated video. They posted questions to ChatGPT and that program wrote the script. The then used Mid-Journey to create avatars and environments, then they used Murf.AI, D-ID and Canva-Pro to create a video reading their ChatGPT script and using their Avatars. I soooo love what they came up with, it is super entertaining. (the guy in front of the Cape May-Lewes ferry, his birthday is April 22, as such Earth Day's date). I tried to upload the file, but alas, that didn't work. You can grab it from my dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ra7f78iu6zeygzwq9ohad/Q-A-with-ChatGPT-FINAL.mp4?rlkey=rrb89v1k8ncvaicrwdncobm9x&dl=0 Chatham House rules apply here - do NOT share this beyond this network please. They also came up with suggestions about how to handle this. All of this has been given to the AIA Board and we are now in that wait-and-see period. Their recommendations are relatively standard: Education and Training, Advocate for what we want, and create valuable partnerships with allied organizations along with some sort of steering committee. But the two most interesting ones have to do with creating a data repository that would basically be a data exchange platform. ChatGPT learned how to communicate using all of your facebook/tik tok/instagram postings. DrawGPT can use drawings from Dodge reports to learn how to draw. Once that happens, we will be cooked. And the last thing was to have the AIA consider redefining HSW. Phil Bernstein covered this well in a talk he gave to the group - i have a recording of that if folks are interested, it is worth a watch. He specifically questioned whether we shouldn't add: Fire, Climate Change and Embodied Carbon, Modern Slavery, and Pandemics. if a resolution is brought before the AIA at their annual meeting (kinda like the the 2019 Resolution for Urgent and Sustained Climate Action - attached) and membership votes to pass it, well then the Board has to take action. That is a much better tactic than submitting reports to the board. Justsayin We can also write a letter, I think that is a good tactic. Just wanted all to know we have a team of folks at AIA who are in year two of working on this. Let me know if I can provide more info or clarity.