I just made friends with AI’s abilities to generate images of my lofty speculations regarding the bleak but fascinating environs of the future. As someone I respect said, “Midjourney is only fun when you take it to its limits to hallucinate. It's not a tool (yet).” I agree with his assessment. I got my Microsoft Bing AI. A more everyday version of machine-generated images that are based on text prompts.
Ecumenopolis of the near joyless
I did refer to dystopia with its toxic waters, sulphuric rains, and blackened industrial landscapes of abandoned factories, roads and towns. Places where the people lived in giant settlements of highly technological constructs by a single agency as everything else was. In order to build and inhibit, people destroyed more and more of their earth and its resources. At one point, nothing was left for humans outside of these giant pods of interiority and gray exteriors. There were no days, nights, and hours anymore. The time collapsed onto itself as the atmosphere started to go extinct. Colors were a thing of the past millenniums. The only thing that mattered was the omnipresent data flow that was integrated into creatures' brains. Talk and other human communications were the traits of the long past. The only prominent sounds that existed were the omnipresent metallic sounds of large pieces of building components being added to this endless process of building this near-joyless ecumenopolis.
There are a lot of flat-out denials of AI in the world at the moment. I’m not a denier but, like many, I have concerns and questions about it. If you’re going to start working with it, I recommend using all your generative thinking. AI needs your imaginative, iterative, and spontaneous mind. This is exactly how architects can conquer their place and establish their role within this rapidly growing platform.
As my friend Mathias del Campo said in a private exchange, “If we don’t do it as architects, someone else will do it for us.”
If you are an architect like me, just imagine the more threatening ramifications of that.
Orhan is blogging his thoughts and impressions late at night.
2 Comments
The firm I'm with is now using Mid Journey for client presentations at start of projects - The future is here folks
Care to share some of that?
I have to say, these images are really nice as concepts. Was that whole paragraph the prompt?
thanks. +/- the same paragraph as the prompt.
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