A Lab for AI Adoption

AIA CA Working for you //byline Nicki Dennis Stephens, Hon. AIA Greetings from the AIA California Office, “AIA California Working for You” is a tool to share member driven initiatives. Recently, a cross section of architects and design professionals gathered to discuss one of the largest influences on practice beyond the economy: the implementation of AI. We all recognize AI is here, already integrated into business and culture. Only parts of its question remain: how can it most effectively be harnessed to enhance practice, what are its assets, what are its dangers, how can its adoption happen equitably for all those in the profession, and how can AIA California serve members in identifying and resolving these issues? “The question isn’t whether AI will change our profession, it’s whether we will be a part of the change or watch it happen from the sidelines,” AIA President Evelyn Lee, FAIA, NOMA, noted in a special presentation via video at a board meeting. “Stop treating AI like a new drawing tool, AI is an invitation to rethink everything,” she said. “AI doesn’t care how you’ve always worked, it doesn’t ask for permission. It shifts the ground underneath the entire industry.” At last week’s AIA California board meeting, we began the process to better understand what adoption looks like for different sized firms and for those working in alternative practice. Together they mapped what will be base code for AIA California initiatives addressing the incorporation of AI (look for a more extensive report of comments from these groups in the coming month). In their entirety, they raised challenges of adoption that need to be resolved, particularly due to authorship and copyright, education–does AI short-circuit required learning components, AI’s negative impact on critical thinking, standard of care, and inequities of adoption between firms of different sizes and resources. “AI is not a partner… it’s an intern (in training!) You can’t fully trust it!! Noted one breakout group participant. While another firm leader noted they had banned AI meeting notes because, created without wider context, they can be misinterpreted later, if used as legal record. But the promises & possibilities, and solutions to challenges, participants in the roundtable sessions offered demonstrate the comprehensive thinking that members deliver to clients and society daily. Here are several: Partner with municipal governments on the adoption of AI in the permitting system to curtail firm resource-drain in these unwieldy and no longer workable systems, and streamline, expedite, and modernize permit processes to align with the speed at which the profession and industry need them to move. Practice tools that improve sustainability adoption by clients and reduce firm time dedicated to research by finding and sharing tools that help articulate why decisions are made to the client → i.e. daylighting equates to x% fewer sick days for employees. Protect industry brain trust and individual authorship by establishing a contained AIA platform for AIA members only. Deliver equitable AI adoption by making the closed platform free and accessible to all AIA members All the ideas demonstrate the value AIA can and will deliver to the membership. The closed platform; the practice tool; the partnership with municipal governments. The discussions during the April board meeting show how AIA California is at its best: a lab for future practice–ideating tools to support practice and defining the positives and negatives of this massive practice model change. I’ll keep you updated, of course, but in the meantime, hosting this important conversation is just one more way AIA California is working for you.

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