To AI or not to AI –

This essay was part of the CEPT Essay Prize Book 2023-24 cycle, published last year.

Author’s note: This is a long essay which will take upto 7-10 minutes; it is not a brainrot quickfix. The best way to read it would be to keep open in your browser and read it when having the time.

Disclaimer: This essay is NOT written by or with the help of an AI tool.

It is written by me, a mortal human. It's funny how in today's day and time even essays will need to start with disclaimers such as these just like the no-smoking ones at the movies. But the question then comes to mind is, does it matter? If an essay is written by Artificial Intelligence (AI), does it make it any less of an essay? Is it not worth reading or being appreciated? And if it does write an essay as good as a human then the real question isn’t anymore what an AI is and what it can do; the real question is what is it to BE human? Hence the title of this essay To BE or Not to BE. It is a play on Shakespeare's famous soliloquy (lines from the play) from Hamlet, "To be or not to be." In the original context, Shakespeare contemplated the existential question of whether it is better to exist or to cease living. The line embodies the timeless human struggle with mortality and the meaning of life. Here we are again today, facing a similar existential question, but with a modern twist.

The mindset of society lately and even before this AI boom has been of giving importance to the ‘who’ behind a piece of work/art and not on the ‘what’ – the actual content or the actual substance of the work itself. We are losing the idea of looking at things objectively. If a building is created by a great/famous architect, do we judge it for what it is or does it automatically become good? And does the vice versa also hold then? I'm not even beginning to question what if an AI is involved.  

The prompt for this essay – Architecture of Thrill, I feel falsely implies an idea that the past form of architecture wasn't thrilling enough and that only this new AI-infused future will be. I would argue that architecture became thrilling when even CAD (Computer Aided Design) was invented and was thrilling even before that. For the fact of the matter, any genuine creative pursuit, in any domain, was and always will be ‘thrilling’. As this new wave of AI is seen as a threat to the creative arts and professions, this essay looks broadly across all domains, and talks about what it is to be a ‘Creative’ today and tomorrow. Due to the pace at which AI is evolving today and the number of tools coming out daily, I am abstaining from making any specific comments using present-day examples of tools/scenarios on what’s happening or will happen in the near future. Anything I say will be rendered obsolete in just a couple of months. To keep this piece timeless, the idea is to try and understand the underlying principles of what it means to be a (creative) human and even at its peak what will differentiate us from an artificial intelligent system.

Just to cover the basics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of computers and machine systems to perform tasks that would ideally require human intelligence. (Irony?) AI is/will be a tool for tasks. To take an analogy of a calculator, we feed data – input and it gives back data – output. It is a new technology. Technology with potential to form an extension of the human mind.

Now that the basics are established, it should be easy to follow that like all other advancements of the past (e.g.: wheels, machines, typewriters, calculators, phones, computers, etc.) it changes everything. The only difference is that the Industrial Revolution replaced /assisted/made new blue collars, this time it will be similar to white collars – the knowledge workers and the creative workers. AI is tireless, fast and cheap. It will save a lot of time. It replaces repetitive work, not creative work. 'AI replaces your hands-typing not your brain thinking while assisting and enhancing it’.  For an architect reading this, think about how much time it takes to generate 1 idea (good/bad) for a building. AI will generate 100 in the same time. Yes, most of it will be bad maybe, but it’s doing the iterations for you. You just need to pick up the good stuff. Now in the overall context of creatives, AI can put out a huge amount of mediocre work in no time. So, if your work is not useful enough in the real world you won’t last because everyone will have the same power. AI will push us and help us to get better. Technology makes old work easier so that new work can be better.

Of course, now, let's address jobs and creativity getting replaced (I will be explaining with an example of an architect but this applies to all the creative professions out there.) Yes, AI will replace some jobs but will also create new ones, as all previous technologies have done. Understand the nuance here though, jobs under architects may be replaced; not architecture and the profession of architecture itself. The definition and its services may expand or contract but the core of it (design – what does it even mean and is it only that much?) remains the same. To understand this and the human mind, consider this analogy – The same way schools exist because most would not learn themselves even if anyone can learn everything with a computer at home, and gyms exist because most would not exercise themselves, creatives will exist because most would not design themselves even if the tools exist – they will come for the service to you. So, who gets booted? The low-waged juniors and the (un)paid interns at offices for example. AI is your new Intern(s) – it works more hours and is very cheap without complaining. (Just to digress from the topic a little bit – Someone had to address the low wages and 'stipends' of architecture jobs in our community – especially in India and Asian countries. It's funny how just principles of humanity should've solved this problem, but it took humanity to create breakthroughs in technology to solve it and it still won't get addressed though.) Yes, these people will be freed up to do ' creative and thinking ' work. The remaining roles and jobs won't be monotonous anymore, they will be layered and interdisciplinary. Think about it, AI makes every engineer an architect. (Scary? Or amazing?)
We need bundled roles in society.

But here’s where everyone’s missing a point – 3 important things as humans have that computers don't – Authenticity, Judgement and Taste.

Yes, computers can now generate more ideas than a single person can come up with in a lifetime; but the final power, the judgement of ‘what’ goes out there, ‘what’ gets made, ‘what’ gets put up in society still resides with us. We become 'Curators' and the onus is on us what becomes part of reality. This is why 'taste' will matter. Because it will be easier and easier to regurgitate and clone information. Good taste means good choices leading to good outcomes in the vastness of mediocre content which will be available. AI doesn’t have intentions, we do. And authenticity comes from each individual’s imagination. Generative programs will drastically decrease the gap between imagination and reality, BUT it will never replace imagination itself. The way humans assigned higher order arithmetic thinking to calculators for reasons of speed, accuracy etc., similarly part functions of creative thinking which previously consumed time/labour/capital can be assigned to AI tools. Eventually, it will be the end of mediocrity. What we will bring to the work is empathy, intuition and nuanced understanding – which come pre-programmed to us as a part of being human. AI will be selling convenience and we will be giving connections, possibility and meaning. 

Till now we talked about the digital, emotional and meta-physical aspects. One more crucial thing that remains is that of the Physical domain. Now it seems obvious to see that AI is intelligent, but it is only partly. AI does not have physical intelligence (yet -but it also will take a long time.) Now we don't need to understand the why of this phenomenon – the only crucial thing to understand is that an AI can play chess well but a super-intelligent robot cannot open a door without failing (Yes yes, 3D printing is there but it works like a normal printer – human controlled and is still in very nascent stages). So, there’s a hell lot of what needs to happen once the creative and design processes are done; at least in the domains of architecture and construction. And this is where my arguments for having bundled roles in society come full circle. The art of making and building is still valid. Now more than ever. Things will still need the human touch. AI will take over your creative load and creative blocks but you will balance this by handling and adding to the physical limitations of a computer. These roles exist today as well and will keep continuing further. (Fun insight / prediction – The role of a site labour/mason will be one of the safest jobs in the world in terms of the threat of replacement by an AI and they will finally be seen and appreciated for their hard work and skill). So, it is scary and it should be scary for people in the middle-ground – people doing just good enough to survive and float – AI is not there yet but it will come. The way to ride along with this wave is to be adaptable, flexible and curiously learning new things. You have to be deep in understanding both extremes of our domain – 1) be fully free and create with enhanced AI technology and 2) Understand how we build and what could be innovated there (We have forgotten Climate-change in all this AI hype around the world – but it is still the larger issue we are facing already – and there’s SO MUCH scope there which seriously needs to be looked upon).

In the same way that we talk to masons to understand how to build, similarly, we should talk to and open up to technologists who understand AI and build with them. Architecture remains a very closely knit community but rather we should build along with these people tools which could eventually help us in magnitudes – while designing but also in construction. We should eventually aim to form a set of cohesive tools with a balance of technology and human touch – from the start till the end of the process.

To comment on what happens to the world order – I think eventually the East turns the tide on the dominant West, especially South and South-East Asia. See, so far, Asian countries have always been the cheap resources for Western countries – digitally and physically. It is to do with the higher population and the lower wages, etc. For example - They outsourced their boring BPO jobs (digital) but also, they gave up the manufacturing lines to China, India and others (physical). But think again about the AI intern analogy – once the West gets AI to do these repetitive tasks for much cheaper than its Asian counterparts our resources will get free-er. These countries will get so much of their working population back for their own country. Yes, an adjustment period will take place where people may be trained for new work and given time for adapting but this was true for the Industrial Age as well. History will repeat itself. And as far as history goes in terms of disruptive events, humans do adapt – they find purpose – and live successfully again. And regarding the manual and physical work, as I argued earlier, as and when slowly the world realizes the importance of physical work, and the scales of supply–demand already on the side of the South and South-East Asian countries, we will command the prices of those services. Eventually, shifting the already moving global power dynamics scale towards India and others. I am bullish on India because unlike China we are a balanced economy in terms of our relations with the world. (And seeing the glass half full is always a better self-fulfilling prophecy, isn’t it?)

Just to quickly address the outrage regarding AI stealing ideas; let's take an example and understand - If I read 100 books regarding a specific topic; after which I write a book on everything I've learned and present some new views or ideas on the same. This book will be deemed as an advancement of literature. The same thing is happening with computers, just at Godspeed. It's being fed ideas and it churns out ideas. This essay is also a culmination of ideas and understanding that I have read, understood, and picked up after going through a lot of data. All essays are. Taking ideas is not theft. Now don’t get me wrong, passing someone’s work as own is theft – copying directly is theft; but ideas themselves belong to everyone. They have a dual nature. There’s no way to cook a dish or build a building without using what came before.

Literature creates Literature.

Art creates Art.

Architecture creates Architecture.

Knowledge creates Knowledge. 

AI is just a pattern matcher and a pattern extender. It should be seen as a boost to our thinking and we should work with it. Artificial Intelligence in the end requires Human Creativity to survive. If we stop being creative, we will not have any progress. AI will also stop learning because it won’t have any more data and just keep repeating the patterns. Creativity and imagination are the most important resources we have. This is what makes us human.

The only question then remains in the words of Seth Godin is ‘Will you choose to matter?’

So go on, be authentic and be creative.

End Notes:

1) I lied in the beginning and this whole essay was written by ChatGPT.
(Glass Shattering?) I'm kidding, I tried but it doesn’t write so well (yet)! This was just the self-reflection part of the essay for us. Depending on how you felt when you got this information you can gauge how much you need to work on towards your views of Artificial intelligence. Because the fact is AI is here, and it is here to stay.

2) This whole essay is on the assumption that we do not reach AGI – Artificial General Intelligence in the near future (If you don’t know what this is trust me do not Google, you won’t have a good day). As far as my research and understanding goes we have more chances of having an encounter with an alien species first than reaching AGI. So, if that happens everyone’s views may change and that could be a further topic of discussion.

Acknowledgements and Further Reading:

The architecture community is a mimetic society and it fairly lags to adapt to new ideas and technologies. Hence for this essay, I looked outside. This whole essay is a culmination of ideas and their simplification from people of the AI world and other creatives. I do not know any of them personally but would like to thank them for opening me up with their worldviews and for what may or may not lie ahead. I would encourage all readers to take time and either listen or read up on their work. The list of their names in no particular order is as follows: Naval Ravikant, Kevin Kelly, Sahil Lavingia, Marc Andreessen, Seth Godin and Brian Norgard.

If you have any thoughts / comments / corrections / feedback - Please do hit reply and let me know :) Thank you for taking out the time and reading it!