Roundtable organized by Architectural Histories.
Chairs:
Markus Lähteenmäki (Architectural Histories)
Min Kyung Lee (Architectural Histories)
Speakers:
Claire Zimmerman (JSAH / University of Toronto)
Anna-Maria Meister (TU-Darmstadt)
Łukasz Stanek (University of Michigan)
Richard J. Williams (University of Edinburgh)
Automation, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), or even alien intelligence, the AI label is under the spotlight for a variety of reasons. AI challenges long established forms, institutions, ethics and politics of creating, managing, interpreting, distributing and evaluating information, that is, how knowledge is produced – the basis of the shared practice that holds Architectural History (AH) together. It also shapes the built environment and the processes of its design in unexpected ways. The second episode of a two-part session co-chaired with JSAH at the SAH Mexico City conference, this roundtable tackles epistemic, social and material challenges as well as possibilities created by machine learning. It zooms out from the practical guidelines, tasks and tools to discuss more broadly what is the role of AI for AH and what is the role of AH in the age of AI?
If today’s AI era represents a different epistemic regime, what principles will constitute our shared work, and which new ones must we establish? What do we sustain as a scholarly community in the face of information automation and algorithmic interpretation? How can architectural historians contribute to thinking of the future of society saturated by AI? Architectural historians already work in ways that engage material, spatial, and visual analysis in ways that AI can’t, and are particularly aware of the material consequences of the digital realm.
The panel picks up from the conversations in Mexico City and brings together scholars to discuss two main threads on AI in relation to AH: How AI affects the production and validation of AH? What does AH tell us about the material consequences of AI? The conversation is organised around the following topics, each opened up by an architectural historian, then extended for broader debate.
1. Scales – From personal space and privacy to a planetary project of knowledge and urbanization, what are the practical and ethical scales of AI? How are the scales of AI in research and reception uneven and unequal?
2. Infrastructures – what are the territories and built environments of AI from data centres to classrooms?
3. Materials and materiality – What are the material effects of and the resources fed into and produced by AI? What are its effects to processuality and labour?
4. Ethics – what are the ethics of AI both in terms of analysis and production of visual and textual information?
5. Publics – What are the publics created through and with with AI and how does it redefine our social relationships within our community and beyond?
This roundtable is a part of the official program of the 9th EAHN Biennial Conference. For further information, please visit the conference website.