On April, 12 - 14th 2024 the Classic Planning Institute held the TAG-24, the largest and most important online seminary on Traditional Architecture of the year. Three days of consecutive panels on different subjects, from urban planning to craftmanship. In particular, the talk I participated in was dedicated to «Futurist Speculations on Human Well-being ». As in the past year, AI was involved in our discussion but this time we adopted a broader frame on technology in general and the relation with human well-being.
The original lineup was the one you see in the picture (Jack Duncan, Riccardo Buratti, Micah Springut), but some change occurred at the last second in the backstage, so that it was radically different. I won't waste your time with that part, anyway I can tell you that at each iteration of our meetings about AI and technology the opinions get layered and nuanced, as it happens in a real vital and democratic debating community. Here is the clip of the panel:
In the expandable text you may find the transcript of the first of my interventions in the panel, the more "theoretically relevant":
...
Good evening, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak at this great annual event.
Greetings also to our friends from Intbau, Classic Planning Institute and the Utrecht Summer School. I also see some familiar faces in this panel.
As you already know if you followed last year's panel on AI, I am very skeptical about its real usefulness in our sector and above all regarding the side effects not strictly linked to architecture but also to society and politics.
What in my opinion is important in all this, beyond all technical and professional considerations, is a political and philosophical principle: preserving human nature.
In a few years, expressing our own art and thoughts will become unusual and subversive, while AI will lead our lives like an autopilot, atrophying the characteristics that make us unique, and at the same time conforming us to the code, to the matrix.
Ultimately the human being will become a machine, and therefore a slave. This is the important underlying aspect of my reflection because it introduces the first concept, that is: AI is developed to reduce COSTS and increase efficiency but, in doing so, it destroys the human being who is inherently inefficient.
Although, from a professional point of view, I have noticed how the development of QUANTITATIVE technical analytical tools for design can be useful, for example to analyze circulation or perform climate or structural simulations.
Even the stylistic or compositional aspects can be helped by pseudo-realistic simulations as with generative AI but, I underline, only on a "dreamlike", impressionistic, conceptual level, to help the visualization or improvement of a human imagination that governs the work of the algorithm by giving it PRECISE directives, not depending on its output.
The technical aspect is instead complex because a robotic construction or decoration system could at first glance allow a democratization of traditional architecture, making it more accessible. However, at the cost of violating the principle established initially because the figure of the craftsman and the architect would be erased and replaced by that of the key-pressing monkey.
Greetings also to our friends from Intbau, Classic Planning Institute and the Utrecht Summer School. I also see some familiar faces in this panel.
As you already know if you followed last year's panel on AI, I am very skeptical about its real usefulness in our sector and above all regarding the side effects not strictly linked to architecture but also to society and politics.
What in my opinion is important in all this, beyond all technical and professional considerations, is a political and philosophical principle: preserving human nature.
In a few years, expressing our own art and thoughts will become unusual and subversive, while AI will lead our lives like an autopilot, atrophying the characteristics that make us unique, and at the same time conforming us to the code, to the matrix.
Ultimately the human being will become a machine, and therefore a slave. This is the important underlying aspect of my reflection because it introduces the first concept, that is: AI is developed to reduce COSTS and increase efficiency but, in doing so, it destroys the human being who is inherently inefficient.
Although, from a professional point of view, I have noticed how the development of QUANTITATIVE technical analytical tools for design can be useful, for example to analyze circulation or perform climate or structural simulations.
Even the stylistic or compositional aspects can be helped by pseudo-realistic simulations as with generative AI but, I underline, only on a "dreamlike", impressionistic, conceptual level, to help the visualization or improvement of a human imagination that governs the work of the algorithm by giving it PRECISE directives, not depending on its output.
The technical aspect is instead complex because a robotic construction or decoration system could at first glance allow a democratization of traditional architecture, making it more accessible. However, at the cost of violating the principle established initially because the figure of the craftsman and the architect would be erased and replaced by that of the key-pressing monkey.
To sum it up, my opinion is therefore to discard A PRIORI the QUALITATIVE outputs of the AI and govern the QUANTITATIVE ones with great awareness. The precise desire to establish the primacy of the human "mind and hand" upstream of the technological process is fundamental. As we Traditionals know, a way to do this is to know how to practically use the own "mind and hands" in a traditional way (and that's the pedagogic aspect).
There is also an economic aspect because, instead of the AI which is in fact deflationary, we should implement a macroeconomic policy that increases the wage share, therefore the purchasing power of citizens.
This means that people could afford a nice project built by a good craftsman. They could afford a home, but let's keep this for another time.
Let's just say that in the upcoming multipolar world there are huge nations that understood this policy and will prosper. This would also have consequencies in traditional architecture. It was my original topic until I discovered that I was assigned again to an AI panel, but whatever, we are improvising.
However, all this serves not only to preserve the human being, but to avoid the risk that traditional architecture, the search for harmony and true sustainability, becomes the prerogative of an elite that can afford it. We must not forget the social function of us architects and craftsmen which is the mission of helping even the less well-off to get closer to the values that once belonged to everyone.
There is also an economic aspect because, instead of the AI which is in fact deflationary, we should implement a macroeconomic policy that increases the wage share, therefore the purchasing power of citizens.
This means that people could afford a nice project built by a good craftsman. They could afford a home, but let's keep this for another time.
Let's just say that in the upcoming multipolar world there are huge nations that understood this policy and will prosper. This would also have consequencies in traditional architecture. It was my original topic until I discovered that I was assigned again to an AI panel, but whatever, we are improvising.
However, all this serves not only to preserve the human being, but to avoid the risk that traditional architecture, the search for harmony and true sustainability, becomes the prerogative of an elite that can afford it. We must not forget the social function of us architects and craftsmen which is the mission of helping even the less well-off to get closer to the values that once belonged to everyone.
So what can we do? And I conclude.
We are like the embers that burn under the ashes until morning. Our task is to preserve knowledge and culture, raising new generations of traditional architects, craftsmen and artists by "creating monasteries", as our Roundtable vice president Noé Morin always says.
We are like the embers that burn under the ashes until morning. Our task is to preserve knowledge and culture, raising new generations of traditional architects, craftsmen and artists by "creating monasteries", as our Roundtable vice president Noé Morin always says.
In this sense, I am very much in favor of a change in educational paradigm that merges the figure of the craftsman with that of the architect. The architect-craftsman could be our response to the economic and cultural decline of Europe and the West in general, both from a cultural and business point of view because it would be a more professionally capable and agile figure.
For this reason - and I do a bit of advertising - remember to read up on our Summer School of Traditional Architecture in Bruges and, from this year on, also in Alsace in France. So we keep working and building together in this direction.
Thanks for the attention.
Thanks for the attention.
Posted: 06/11/2024 20:54 — Author(s): Riccardo Buratti