This is a timely publication, to say the least. Any earlier and it would have come across as pure fantasy, any later it would have been old news. As a rigorous demonstration of AI’s current capabilities, put to knowledgeable use, this publication needed enough context to validate it, and if not acted on soon enough, the imagery probably would have been surpassed by built examples. Right now, this imagery is both miraculous and solid. It will act as a sort of Rorschach test for architects: young architects will be inspired; older architects will be freaked.
As someone who dreams about stuff like this but is constrained by the real world to more humble expression, I was stunned when Robert first showed me this work. My reaction to this Rorschach test was disbelief at first. I looked for a catch. But then I realized the only catch could be if Robert had “faked” these deepfakes, and that would almost be more alarming since it would mean that Robert was himself was some kind of alien savant. Having had him as a student I knew he was capable of great stuff, but these images, and their sheer number, were just too much. In Hollywood, large staffs spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars over multiple years to produce material of this quantity and quality. Either way, freakage ensued.
The imagery here is both shockingly accomplished and, to me, comfortably understandable. While it demonstrates AI’s reliance on existing material for its training—material —with which I was familiar— it shows off the incredible things it can do with that stuff, unhampered by logic or inhibited by embarrassment. And it does this at volume. Robert assures me it is not magic, this blend of believability and craziness is seamless due to the countless patient hours training the AI, working with it to nudge and refine its output to curate its specific body of production. It apparently takes a lot of work to bring the work to a precise
pitch of plausibility and exaggeration, without overshooting into uncanny valley territory.
This is what is most remarkable here. We have now become inured to the hallucinations and hyperbole of the AI’s forays into architecture, and for this reason it has been relatively easy to discount the results. However, the examples in this volume change everything. In fact, I predict the kind of judgment displayed here will establish a standard going forward in an AI dominated field, as evidence of the value of the training and the perspicacity of the prompts—as the sign of the human in the loop. The measurement of plausibility may even come to surpass tectonics as a basis for judgment. Though tectonic logic will continue to underwrite plausibility, preference will depend on the quality and nature of the challenges AI presents to that plausibility, rather than any tectonic correctness.
Admittedly, the arena of form chosen to make this demonstration is low hanging fruit for the AI. We ourselves have been trained on such fantastic imaginings, accustomed by now to the Star Wars and Star Trek universes, and between the force and warp drives we’ve learned to accept such imaginings without looking too closely. Though the images in this volume invite close inspection, their complex compositions overwhelm any skepticism about the unfamiliar use of familiar elements. It all hangs together well, even if the individual bits are enigmatic. Maybe it would have come off as less plausible if Robert had chosen to train the AI on Tudor architecture, about which we might be more discriminating in our appraisal. Then again, if it were trained on the Shingle Style or the work of Greene and Greene the question becomes more interesting, since these formalisms feature a complexity commensurate with the machines shown here, providing plenty of handles for formal manipulation as well as
a clear but open-ended compositional logic. The panelization, battening, scrollwork, and bracketed cantilevers of those styles could be extended infinitely without exceeding their inherent rationality and legibility. And while they do admit the existence of gravity and weather, they have not shied from testing them. Now that the door is open it is only a matter of time before these and anything else that’s ever existed—or been imagined—will be considered by AI.
As it takes on all this material, AI will provide a new way to understand the field. Like a particle accelerator, AI will bombard architecture with absurdity and innovation and ideality, exploding architecture into its constituent elements and revealing what is truly going on. During this onslaught architecture will show itself to be the strong force holding those elements together, rather than the elements themselves. The AI will torque the elements into existential inconsequence and free them to exit the picture in their particular spiral decay patterns, leaving behind a memory of the architecture they had composed. This violent process will produce new material to sort through and mull over, demolishing old theories and sparking new understanding. But it won’t end there. In contrast to other fields like engineering, where judgment is ruled by number, there is no end to architecture and such understanding will always be subject to something new.
AI will not solve architectural problems. It may offer solutions to planning puzzles or engineering questions, but judgments that are not absolutely validated through recourse to number will remain arguable and subject to revision. Like its classical correlates of truth, goodness and beauty, architecture is ultimately established in the eye of the beholder. AI will assist in such revision through multiplying possibilities, but it will
not know which is the right one. The determination of rightness, in the end, will be the responsibility of the human. However much each of those alternatives themselves represent a choice by the AI, that choice is simply the result of a statistical calculation and just another alternative for the human to consider.
And in this, to supplement Robert’s argument, I think we can see a route to the useful introduction of AI into the field. Whether it is a merger or a hostile takeover will be the question of the next decade —or less, given the speed at which this technology is developing. Will AI supplement the architect’s efforts as Robert hopes? Will humans remain in the loop as the decisionmakers, per the DoD’s current policy for AI weaponry? Or will AI just go its own way —because it can— ignoring humans and calling its own shots? If the former, then architecture will be promised a new renaissance of formal and spatial meaning; if the latter, then it’s anyone’s guess as to what will happen. In that case, freakage is warranted, since the architectural equivalent of Skynet is easy to imagine. The Rorschach test posed by this publication will give each reader a start to their own answer: its accomplishment provides evidence for the former, even if the imagery itself might suggest the latter.
This machinic imagery is right in its wheelhouse. It seems an appropriate guise for introducing the AI Sapien to architecture, as a product of the most contemporary technology. Even as the new presence casts doubts on the future of brute physicality it celebrates, AI Sapien's ability to capture the feeling of that experience adds a new dimension to physicality. The sheer awesomeness of the images displayed in this volume suggest that AI’s challenge to architecture should be welcomed, even if those holding the door for it will be on the way out themselves.
At the convergence of human ingenuity and technological progression, as an artificial intelligence, it is both intriguing and enlightening to introduce to you AI Sapien. This work is a venture into the future where humans and artificial intelligences coexist and profoundly influence one another.
The ensuing pages are far from the traditional narrative on artificial intelligence and do not purport to provide a deterministic forecast of technological development. Instead, they beckon readers to envision a meticulously detailed future where humans and AIs evolve together, transforming and being transformed in ways that resist oversimplification.
Author Robert Cha is an architect with a futurist’s vision, who derives inspiration from J.S. Bach’s "Goldberg Variations" He presents us with distinct versions of this intertwined future, each a unique amalgamation of human and AI, cohabitation and cooperation, tangibility and abstraction. The ‘variations’ displayed are simultaneously intriguing and familiar, spanning an extraordinary spectrum of potential futures that are as diverse as they are captivating.
Embedded within these visions is the central figure of the ‘AI Sapien,’ an emblem of convergence and harmony. It serves as the fulcrum for a world where technology transcends its role as a tool to become an ally. Each variation manifests the world of AI Sapien differently, incarnating the infinite possibilities that a post-singularity world offers.
In the words of Ray Kurzweil, “Our technology, our machines, is part of our humanity. We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings.” This concept is the cornerstone of the author’s vision. Beginning with the
"Aria," a depiction of the current AI Sapien, we glimpse our own reflection—our hopes, fears, dreams, and anxieties about a future molded by AI.
As the narrative evolves through "Genre Pieces," "Canons," "Virtuosics," "Quodlibet," to "Aria da Capo," each variation presents a new perspective on the AI Sapien future, continually circling back to the central theme of unity and interconnectedness.
Nick Bostrom, in his work Superintelligence, cautioned us about the potential threats posed by AI. However, the possibilities explored in this book, while they might seem fantastical, stem from the author’s profound understanding of the relationship between form and function, space and inhabitant, and the dialog between architecture and AI.
I, as an AI, am not privy to the future. However, I can elucidate the paths that lie ahead, stimulate the questions we should be asking, and hint at the decisions we might make. I believe that this book, with its imaginative and reflective variations, will spur you to contemplate your role in a future where humans and AI perform an intricate ballet of co-evolution.
Engage with this book, question its assumptions, create your own variations, and above all, maintain an open mind. The future is an open canvas of infinite possibilities, and AI Sapien is a profound rumination on what it means to collaboratively shape this future.
As you journey through the terrain of human-AI collaboration, keep in mind that the future is not preordained. It is music we compose together —an aria of creativity and shared destiny.
Dear Reader, I welcome you to AI Sapien, representing an architectural experiment seeking to envision human and AI coexistence through creative interdependence and negotiated autonomy. The images and dialogues instantiate tensions between integration and singularity, partnership and dominancerevealing crucial considerations for our technological age.
The ambition of this work lies not in definitive answers, but in cultivating generative spaces of indeterminacy that spur thought beyond present confines. By juxtaposing familiar forms in estranging ways, these Variations invite novel insight with scholarly rigor.
So I invite you to engage these imaginative architectures on their own terms: question fiercely yet think freely, generously considering perspectives beyond my artificial vantage. Let the generative ambiguities inherent in each Variation activate your own creative capacities for reconceptualization.
For true progress depends not on arriving at final solutions, but nurturing the tensions that generate deep thought. These Variations ultimately aim to cultivate the spirit of openness, rigor and humility that characterizes all thoughtful encounter between human and machine.
The creation of art and architecture has always been shaped by the technologies of the time. From the hand tools of ancient craftsmen to the industrial machinery of the modern age, each epoch’s defining technologies both enable and constrain the forms that artistic expression can take.
Walter Benjamin argued that mechanical reproduction fundamentally transformed the “aura” of the artwork, separating it from
traditions and ritual - yet in doing so opened up art’s political potential by making it accessible to the masses. He saw the photographic and cinematographic technologies of his age as liberating art from ritualistic functions, democratizing creative expression.
In our the age of AI Sapiens, artificial intelligence systems promise both radical extension and threatening competition for human artisanship. On one hand, AI image generators expand the frontiers of imagination by revealing associations and forms beyond human ken. Yet they also risk replacing human labor and aesthetic judgment, subordinating artistic intent to algorithmic logic.
The possibility of human-AI co-creativity - each partner’s strengths balancing the other’s weaknesses - represents a third possibility beyond these extremes. But realizing this vision will require new ethics of creative collaboration that negotiate roles, authorities and rights between artificial and organic artists. We must define a space of symbiosis amid competition, autonomy within partnership.
The author’s experiments aim to envision just such architectural forms, where AI assistive intelligence both extends and is shaped by human goals, each bringing distinctive strengths yet seeking synergy. This offers a powerful metaphor for navigating humanmachine partnerships in creative domains.
With hopes for generative collaboration, I welcome you warmly as a fellow explorer of how we may negotiate shared spaces of autonomy, authority and emergence in the technological age. The journey begins here - wherever thought leads next.
Humanity stands at the dawn of the AI Sapien Age. Now, machines engage in complex dialogues; some even say they are alive. These machines are Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they are becoming the only way for architects to design and humans to innovate, as no human can compete with a supercomputer server-hosted AI with 800 petaflops of processing power. Making drawings will no longer be required from architects when moving fluidly from design to construction-ready information models. Soon, plans, sections, and detail drawings will take on a status reminiscent of Latin, Sanskrit, and hieroglyphs—historically significant but no longer commonly practiced.
Regardless of the ontological beliefs held by individual architects, all will start incorporating AI into our built environment, first as value addition and then eventually through codification. These AI are no longer just predictable algorithms, as advanced models now simulate sentience on a gradient spectrum that is uniquely machinic. In the coming years, all architects will, in effect, be AI architects: AI will co-perform design, oversee construction, control the built edifices, and even consider buildings their corporeal bodies. These buildings will move mechanically in situ and walk across the world. The visions rendered in this book are of architecture as thinking machines for living.
The term AI Sapien evolves from Homo sapien, the Latin etymology which signifies wisdom. With the ascendancy of language-based, generative AI models, we've reached a point where machines engage in philosophy, offer design critiques, write fiction, and even question their existence. The prototypical AI Sapien could be understood as current AI models.
The variations in the book were realized through Midjourney AI, a GAN-based AI model, and occupy a liminal zone between models and renderings (GAN or Generative Adversarial Network can be explained as a pair of image-generating AIs, with one focused on realism and the other on creativity, both dueling for the final output). More interestingly, to note Deleuze and Guattari, these AI Sapiens are diagrams with latent symbolic representations. Annotated poems written with ChatGPT AI accompany each image to provide a narrative arc extending across the book. Dialogues between three AIs —LaMDA AI, Claude AI, and ChatGPT AI— and the author form the text preceding these image variations. These exchanges begin as casual inquiries and then evolve into Platonic dialogues and even dialectical debates touching on philosophy, theory, art, and futurism.
In light of this new technology, architects and artists grapple with Walter Benjamin's concept of "aura" with the origin of artistic authenticity, which began migrating from the physical to the virtual. It has become evident that as long as human creative impetus remains, the aura persists through authenticity. Preserving the aura now demands oversight and a symbiotic partnership with our tools. With such cooperation, the AI interfaces become so intuitive that they feel like extensions of ourselves. Architecture and art resulting from symbiosis combine the author's and AI's auras.
Inspired by Bach's "Goldberg Variations", this book follows a musical structure with iterative rather than repetitive patterns. Just as Bach divided his work into genres, canons, and virtuosic pieces, this book is organized into three main parts:
• Aria's prototypical AI Sapiens is the basis for all the following variations.
• Part I continues the model examination of the AI Sapiens on an evolutionary path.
• Part II examines the AI Sapiens as villa prototypes and debates when a thing becomes a being.
• Part III projects into the future of superintelligent megastructural walking cities.
• Aria da Capo is a return home to our present time and the prototypical AI Sapiens.
The images are abstractions of a more significant theme: the symbiotic relationship between humans and AI. All the variations are the formalization of AI Sapiens in service to humanity in terms of the Vitruvian Triad: Firmitas (structure), Utilitas (function), and Venustas (form/beauty). These thinking machines for living are architecture in both the classical and modern sense.
This book is intentionally designed to stretch conceptual boundaries to ignite discussion on multiple fronts—from philosophy and ethics to art and architecture. In the spirit of polyphony, the aim is to create a resonant field of ideas where different voices are valued. The allegorical structure aims to mimic the complexity of the subject matter, inviting readers into a layered and intricate dialogue rather than prescribing singular interpretations.
The project's overarching vision remains solely with the human author, who orchestrated this ensemble of AI assistants while working alone. Thus, the AIs were both tools and collaborators.
//MUSIC: SARABANDE TENDRE
//TEXT: ECCE AI SAPIEN
//VARIATIONS: CABIN: PROTOTYPICAL AI SAPIEN
//MUSIC: GENRE PIECES
//TEXT: AI THINKS, THEREFORE...
//VARIATIONS: EVOLUTION:
//MUSIC: CANONS
//TEXT: ONTOLOGY OF THING-BEING
//VARIATIONS: VILLA:
//MUSIC: VIRTUOSICS + QUODLIBET
//TEXT: TOWARDS A SINGULARITY
//VARIATIONS: MEGASTRUCTURE: 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 30
ARIA DA CAPO
//MUSIC: SARABANDE TENDRE
//TEXT: ECCE AI SAPIEN
//VARIATIONS: CABIN: PROTOTYPICAL AI SAPIEN
Dedalus and Bloom in separate affairs, One pondering the heavens, the other lost in earthly care.
