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Welcome to this week’s edition of Architecture Insights.

AI integration in architecture and landscape architecture has transformative potential as we have seen. But as AI capabilities expand, the phenomena of deepfakes, data theft, copyright infringement, and other malpractices will continue to threaten the integrity of design professions.

News & Updates

1. You can now access Google Gemini 1.5 for free at the Deepmind website. At the onset, it appears that version 1.5 can handle larger files, including PDFs and videos. There are a few use cases we can think of when it comes to benefitting from the increase in file capacity which is summarizing documents. I.e submitting a lengthy material or product description and then subsequently communicating with Gemini to extract relevant information.

Example prompt: “Can you analyze the following product description for outdoor sports field grandstands and provide me with the following information: available sizes? cost per sq.ft of material? average construction time (start to finish)? etc.

2. OpenAI released its first impressions to videos created by users who had early access to Sora, the new text-to-video AI.

3. Microsoft Teams is getting copilot AI, be prepared for more AI features like video transcriptions. We could see this potentially removing the need to spend time on meeting summaries.

Resources

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Deep Fakes & Copyright Infringement

Deep Fake Misuse

Deepfake technology, which allows for the creation of hyper-realistic video and audio, poses a unique challenge to architects and landscape architects. Imagine a scenario where a project proposal is undermined by a counterfeit video that misrepresents the design's impact on the environment or community.

A business executive in China was deep faked into sending a scammer 20 million dollars (no that is not a typo) over a deep faked video call posing as his colleagues.

While architects or landscape architects are not responsible for managing large sums of money like finance workers, this is eye-opening to the potential these AI tools already pose.

Design professionals are not immune to these types of attempts.

Copyright (Intentional/Unintentional)

Today, an AI can churn out variations of your designs faster than you can say "intellectual property rights." This isn't just about getting credit where it's due; it's about protecting the unique essence of your work and others from being diluted in a sea of AI-generated clones.

Our fields often seek inspiration from precedent work. Prompting AI to generate "4 examples of a Frank Gehry-style building" among hundreds of other styles makes this task easier.

In a recent update to its terms of service, Midjourney announced it would not be responsible if you or your business got sued for attempted misuse or copying of designs generated by Midjourney itself.

While other platforms like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion have more protective terms and will protect their users from copyrgiht claims on their platforms.

So, why should this matter to you?

Because your creativity is your currency. In a world where AI can mimic and manipulate at an unprecedented scale, safeguarding your designs isn't just about legal protection – it's about preserving the soul of your work and of others.

Prompt of the week

For coordinating a project kickoff meeting:

As a project leader in charge of an architectural project, your main task is to host the initial kickoff meeting with architects, landscape architects, engineers, and planners. Your goal is to develop a well-structured meeting that clearly outlines discussion points, goals, roles, responsibilities, and a development roadmap. Success hinges on effectively sharing the project vision, establishing communication channels, and achieving consensus among team members.

Begin by expressing gratitude for the team's involvement and emphasizing the meeting's purpose to align on project goals and strategies. It's crucial to ask up to five key questions to gather detailed planning information, focusing on agenda items, team roles, and project objectives. Visualize your meeting goals and break down planning into actionable steps, considering the best communication methods and engagement strategies.

AI Image of the week

Thank you for reading this week’s issue, check past issues here. Share this newsletter with colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in the combined world of architecture and artificial intelligence.

Until next Friday,

A.I.