Automata at Court: Characters, Intelligences, Machines


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Date

2024

Publication Type

Book Chapter

ETH Bibliography

yes

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Abstract

Despite the rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence, especially Large Language Models (LLMs) in the realm of architectural renderings, their implications for architectural thought and practice remain largely unexplored. Posited at the interplay of technology and technics, this essay proposes an architectonic framework to put today's most powerful machine learning models at play beyond the domain of the visual. Automata as cosmotechnical devices, manifesting across cultures and histories, can help challenge the generic and overarching sensibility of LLMs and the eschatological narratives surrounding them. Transferring the motif of the Automaton to LLMs, the authors theoretically frame and conduct an experiment incorporating programming and natural languages. Establishing connections between the two allows the outsourcing of design roles to LLMs role-playing as characteristic automata. The proposed framework, pairing the genericity of this technology with the culturally charged specificity of the automaton, can incorporate multiple intelligences in the context of an architectural project, point towards a plurality of possible LLM-based technics, and raise questions beyond ontological distinctions of human and machine, nature and artifice, technology and culture.

Publication status

published

Book title

Synthetic Realities

Journal / series

Volume

Pages / Article No.

55 - 63

Publisher

AADR – Art Architecture Design Research

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

LLMs; Architecture; Automata; Roleplay; Logistics; Technics

Organisational unit

03563 - Hovestadt, Ludger (emeritus) / Hovestadt, Ludger (emeritus)

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