Support or automation in decision-making: the role of artificial intelligence for the project
From Firenze University Press Journal: TECHNE
Tiziana Ferrante, Dipartimento di Pianificazione, Design, Tecnologia dell’Architettura Sapienza Università di Roma
Federica Romagnoli, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile Edile e Ambientale, Sapienza Università di Roma
The race for artificial intelligence According to Ray Kurzweil, artificial intelligence will reach human intelli-gence in 2030 (Kurzweil, 2006). The desire to compensate for natural shortcomings with artificial tools has accompanied the evolution of civili-sation since its origins. As extensively treated by Herbert Simon, “artificial” (“man-made”) is all that is “adapted to human goals and purposes” and «as our aims change, so too do our ar-tefacts and vice versa» (Simon, 1996). Since, paraphrasing Aristotle, «all men by nature desire knowledge», the con-tinuous tension generated by the desire to understand what is and, even more, by the ambition to predict what will beis what moves technological progress.An innate calling for anticipation pushes us to design and to project for-ward a series of actions with the hope of directing the future towards better life prospects. This drives us to provide ourselves with powerful means (enabling technologies) to increase our knowledge of the world around us and to operate within its complexity.The exponential development of in-formation technologies and telecom-munications has triggered the global phenomenon of digital transition, whose economic, social, and cultural consequences increasingly affect our information society. This is a scenario that requires a study of the effects gen-erated not by the actions of individu-als but by the exchange of information (data) through immaterial relation-ships (connections) that structure a “network society” (Castells, 1996).The recent innovations in machine learning mechanisms, capable of pro-cessing the vast amount of data available today, have again put artificial intelligence (AI) at the centre of the Just Accepted: October 22, 2022 Published: May 30, 2023 scientific, philosophical and political debate. In the European institutional framework, AI has been defined as a “key enabling technology”, which aims to automate one or more cognitive (human) processes, providing predictions, recommendations, or decisions to achieve specific objectives, continuously learning from the environment in which it is located, or from the results of its actions(European Commission, 2020).
It has already been argued that AI systems, while inspired by the func-tioning of biological neural networks, are not comparable to “intelligence” itself (Crawford, 2021). However, the machines’ abilities (calculation speed and memory capacity unmatched by the human mind) are now becoming indispensable to support the decision-making process in resolving increas-ingly complex problems, demonstrat-ing their potential for application in all sectors, including construction.The construction sector is energy-consuming, vulnerable in productivity, and affected by ‘deeply rooted’ weaknesses (delays, missed performance, loss of information in the process phases, etc.) that limit its growth. These challenges find a possible solution in the digital transition initially through Building Information Modelling, and then with the adoption of AI systems as a conse-quent application. It is a transition that recognises the centrality of the project as a decisive moment for the effectiveness of the entire building process, which is called to generate a unicum where the quality is the result of the combination of different types of knowledge, which must converge in an integrated way as they are equally important.In line with this vision (based on the definition and exchange of geometric, performance, procedural, etc. information), the use of a new data-driven decision-making rationale, supported by AI, offers the possibility of preventing and reducing errors, and of optimising the use of resources, implementing more informed choices in a shorter time thanks to the greater accuracy of forecasts.
However, the construction sector still remains to date one of the least digitised (ECSO, 2021). This slow-ness hinders using AI systems (based on availability, number, and quality of data). However, it allows us to focus (and more critically) on the profound changes that the introduction of digital processes, capable of making decisions independently, will represent for the design activity in the near future. In the design field, these changes require (already today) some reflection on what is appropriate to delegate to the machine, considering not only the benefits but also (and above all) the potential risks. This concern makes it urgent to establish shared strategies for the ethical and responsible development of new AI systems (Tegmark, 2018), as occurred in other areas where AI application is more mature. In relation to this context, the contribution aims to identify, through the exemplification of some works implemented with the most recent applications of AI, the possible virtuous modes of interaction that allow for the maintenance of a ‘conscious’ and expert control by humans in the decision-making process of Architectural design.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/techne-13713
Read Full Text: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/techne/article/view/13713
