It seems that everyone is talking about (or with) ChatGPT. The platform’s convincing conversational acuity and ability to synthesise disparate conceptual threads provides a vivid demonstration of AI’s potential. I’ve now read several accounts online where scholars, programmers, writers, musicians and artists use ChatGPT or similar as a creative companion to explore ideas — comparable…More
Fine tune your AI
My first blog posting appeared 25 August 2010 titled “Tuning as …” It followed the publication of my book The Tuning of Place. In the short posting I proposed: “Tuning might well be the metaphor of our age. ” I was thinking of smartphones and their role in moderating our relationships with environments. The term “tuning,”…More
Architecture in multidimensional feature space
In a previous post (Predicting proximity), I reviewed the NLP (natural language processing) operation of calculating the relationships between words in a corpus of texts. So the word “architectural” is closer to the word “urban” than “architectural” is to “culinary.” Very close word proximity could mean that one word can be substituted for another in…More
The invention of language
Automated natural language processing (NLP) technology is impressive, though I need to remind myself of its limits. It is easy to elide thoughts about its linguistic capabilities with a sense that it is on the way to mastery of language, and therefore human intelligence. In what follows I will follow the line that NLP is…More
Imperfect patterns
Training a neural network (NN) involves automatically adjusting numerical weights and thresholds (biases) to account for all input and output pairs presented to the NN. After training on these input-output patterns the NN should reproduce the appropriate output pattern when presented with any one of the input patterns. Note that it is not patterns that…More
Just one neuron
I revisited our earlier (1990) article on neural networks “Spatial applications of neural networks in computer-aided design.” Neural networks were novel in architecture and CAD. What follows is an update of the part of that article in starting to explain how neural networks function. Neural network layers Neural network (NN) models store information as numbers…More
Mandala and metaphor
I’m on sabbatical as I write this, and taking the opportunity to research AI in the urban context as I travel. Here I am in Central Java, at Borobudur for the first time. This trip was prompted by my early work with Adrian Snodgrass, with whom I joint authored the book Interpretation in Architecture in…More
Automatic pattern completion
In 1990 Arthur Postmus and I published an article about “spatial applications” of artificial neural networks (ANNs). In a more recent article, Gabriele Mirra and Alberto Pugnale at the University of Melbourne developed up-to-date applications of AI in design. They generously cited our article (amongst articles by others). I concur with their assessment of the…More
Who’s listening?
In every mind there is a higher function watching or listening to the inflow of sense data and monitoring its own thought processes. In his seminal book on the philosophical challenge of consciousness, Daniel Dennett argues convincingly against this proposition. He directs his criticism against those who presuppose that somewhere, conveniently hidden in the obscure…More
The next word
“We are so in sync we finish each other’s … sandwiches.” That’s a variation on a joke from several sources: The Simpsons, Arrested Development, The Good Place, etc. In some social situations where I can’t think of anything appropriate to say, I just start a sentence anyway, not knowing what comes next or how it…More