Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Introduction to AI for Architects

First published in 2022, this book by Neil Leach is currently being prepared for a second edition, scheduled for 2025. But the updated version of “Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” in Ukrainian will be published earlier — in the summer of 2024! The author kindly suggested that the Ukrainian translation take into account the changes he made for the second edition “to more accurately reflect the changing space of ideas and technological progress that are fueling the revolution in AI design.”

Neil Leach writes about the application of artificial intelligence in architecture and the “brain city” of the future in a very broad context — after a brief overview of the history of AI development, he shares reflections on rather philosophical topics, such as AI’s ability to create or rethinking art and human thought processes in general in the mirror of AI. However, it also deals with many very practical matters, from copyright issues to specific programs that architects are already using for various purposes today. In addition to the extremely informative text, this book will also provide you with a huge reading list and many links for further exploration: it contains about seven hundred notes.

But that's not all - Neil Leach is working on a second book, which should be a continuation and dialectical opposite of the first. We quote the author: "This series of books is a reflection of the aforementioned paradox. The first volume, "Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence", celebrates the positive contribution of AI. It describes the extraordinary achievements of AI in the past and makes assumptions about the potential of AI for designing our buildings in the future. In contrast, the second volume, "Death of the Architect", reveals the potential dark side of AI and outlines the threats it poses in terms of unemployment, surveillance and loss of personal freedom. These first two volumes are intended as a dialectical opposition. There is no reason to consider one of them more convincing than the other, so readers are left to form their own opinion based on the arguments presented in both editions. However, these arguments are to some extent the same - like two sides of the same coin. After all, when AI is able to design buildings for us - will this not lead to the "Death of the Architect"?».