New York-based designer and researcher Danil Nagy discusses the future of artificial intelligence in design and urban analysis
Why artificial intelligence is the future of architecture and design
The future is artificial – or at least Danil Nagy thinks so. The New York-based designer and researcher works for The Living, a design firm inside the research department of Autodesk, a global software company, as well as lecturing at Columbia University. From here, he’s developed a variety of projects that show the benefits of artificial intelligence technologies and their applications to design and urban analysis. He tours the country in May as part of Paradigm Shift, a multi-city talkfest pitched at designers and architects – not to mention the public.
Tell us a bit about the Hy-Fi project – it was made with compostable bricks?
They were grown out of agricultural waste, mostly corn stalks and mycelium, which is the root structure of mushrooms. Our project was the first application of such a material to a building structure; our goal was to make a completely compostable installation. To be honest, we were not even sure we could build it until it was done.
How will artificial intelligence benefit us?
AI can benefit all human endeavours by making us more efficient and allowing us to focus on those aspects of ourselves that make us most human – such as intuition and creativity.
Should we be afraid?
There’s a lot of fear right now about AI and robotics taking over people’s jobs but, historically, every period of technological development has created more new jobs for humans than taken away. I don’t think AI will be different. The things people worry about taking over the world are true AI, which are very far in the future, if theoretically possible at all. The technologies we already have today, which cannot really think for themselves, are not going to take over the world anytime soon, but they can augment our own intelligence and unleash new possibilities.
Paradigm Shift starts in Tauranga on May 15 and finishes in Queenstown on May 19.
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