A Proper Use for AI

Something has started happening in the field of AI that we wanted to talk about. Many of these new Tech sector start ups seem to be hammers in search of a nail. There have been stories about companies spending more on AI tools than on the programmers they replaced, companies pretending AI is doing the work but really just paying an army of underpaid coders overseas, and companies being forced to make massive payments for mistakes made by over reliance on Artificial Intelligence tools that haven’t earned that level of trust. All of this is to say, that it can be hard to be optimistic about the field at times. However, we have identified a way that the tools can be useful and actually live up to their promise, with a catch.

First, I want to stress that this is a best case use as the technology exists today. We’re not going to get into resource and ethical issues when it comes to AI. Cost of power, use of water, absorption of computing parts and other issues will remain and are viable criticisms of these tools. Does using AI to generate an image justify the water and power and technology used? That’s a complex question well outside the scope of this narrow post. It’s legit, and we’ll come back to it someday. For today, we’re going to assume that eventually, they bring the costs (financial and ecological) down so that these tools remain or become viable for the uses that we’re discussing.

AI to Communicate

Here’s where Artificial Intelligence shows promise. Replacing the technical skill of the average client. Over the years we’ve been in practice, we’ve had clients attempt to communicate their desires in many ways. We’ve gotten spreadsheets, lists, napkin sketches, inspiration photos, and one time, a water color painting. Truthfully, these things all have their drawbacks. The clients tend not to be great at spatial relationships in 3 dimensions. They tend to have trouble figuring out how stairs and roofs will work. The clients usually don’t have a great sense of space. That napkin sketch may try to fit the entire primary suite into a powder room sized closet. The clients have no idea about building code impacts on their thoughts. Can’t tell you how often I’ve had to tell someone something was illegal or would require building upgrades that dwarf the cost of the project. AI can’t fix those issues, yet. Although there are some tools that can help professionals, the widely available tools aren’t there. However, what it can do is generate a rough sketch.

Now, it will be polished and technically brilliant, as computers tend to be. However, it will absolutely be useless for anything other than personal expression. We’ve had a few clients provide AI generated sketches, plans, etc, and without fail, they have major issues. One had been asked to generate an accessible bathroom, which it did pretty well, except for the door, which was about 18″ wide. One had gone ahead and relocated the rear porch to the side. One sketch generated an L shaped building despite the prompt asking for a box. However, this is focusing on what it got wrong. What it got right was that it did create a useful impression. While the details may have been improper, the general thrust was right. With the proper framing and guidance, it’s at least as good as a sketch.

Another useful aspect of these tools is that the tool is super fast. In a couple of minutes, you can write up a prompt and generate a few options. You can then either tailor your prompt and try again, or accept one or more of the outputs as close enough. You have to be ok with close enough. While the AI is technically brilliant, it is dumber than the dumbest intern. Since they don’t think like a person, they will make odd intuitive leaps and hallucinate, and you can write the prompt however you want, expecting it to generate perfect is setting yourself up for failure.

Artistic Purposes Only

So long as you’re willing to use it at the level of a realistic looking sketch or a semi-fleshed out spreadsheet, these tools can really enhance your ability to express yourself, your wants, and your needs to your architect. It cannot replace your architect though. That day may come, but again, AI does not “think” or “reason” and absolutely has an issue with Garbage In/Garbage Out. Sometimes, you need a professional to tell you no.

Similarly, we have adopted some AI tools to help us communicate with clients. As a small, rural architecture firm, we design a wide variety of projects for a wide variety of projects. We have long wanted to do more renderings both to help clients understand and to use for marketing (both as pretty images for the public and to sell our ideas to clients who can’t quite see them), but never had the spare resources to devote to it. These tools allow us to generate images that clients can better understand (standard plans/elevations/sections are great, but take some skill to understand the implications of). However, we’ve had to remind a few of them that they are not “pictures” of what we’re building. They’re more like paintings, some details may not align with what will be there, what the programs were asked to provide, or the support materials we give them to work from. It can be beautiful, but it is not reality. It’s why we tend to add clearly fake details to our images, to help them seem more fantastical. Monsters or dinosaurs actually help our clients not take them too seriously. Next time you’re looking at a rendering of ours, see if you can spot the fantasy we added.