Merging Intelligences – Cristóbal Valenzuela, Immanuel Koh & Jeffrey Huang


For some, generative AI is already tapping on the door of creativity as measured by human standards. This is the result of crafting algorithms inspired in a whole range of forms paradigms borrowed from cognitive science. As a result it is quite common that algorithms learn by “playing” with each other, “concealing” information, “guessing” it, “rewarding” each other for success etc. The nature in the form intelligence built in this process influences in the nature of the responses that the computer gives back to us. This session we will discuss the types of the creativity brought by these algorithms and the extent where it can be argued that is matching human creativity.

Cristóbal Valenzuela is a Chilean-born technologist and software developer. He is a co-founder of RunwayML. Previously, he was a researcher at New York University mainly working on the development of ml5.js. His projects have been exhibited in Latin America, Europe, and the US. Including NeurIPS, Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art, ARS Electronica, GAM, ACADIA, Fundación Telefonica, Lollapalooza, NYC Media Lab, New Latin Wave, DOCLAB, Inter-American Development Bank, Stanford University, and New York University.

Immanuel Koh holds a joint appointment as an assistant professor in Architecture & Sustainable Design (ASD) and Design & Artificial Intelligence (DAI) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), where he now directs Artificial Architecture — a transdisciplinary research laboratory that focuses on the design and development of AI models for predictive urbanism and generative architecture. He studied at the Architectural Association (AA) in London before obtaining his PhD at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. His doctoral thesis “Architectural Sampling: A Formal Basis for Machine-Learnable Architecture” was nominated for the Best Thesis Prize. Immanuel has taught at the AA, Royal College of Art, Tsinghua University (Beijing), Strelka (Moscow), Angewandte (Vienna), DIA (Bauhaus Dessau), Harvard GSD, UCL Bartlett and many others. His works have been exhibited internationally including V&A Museum, while his publications include Architectural Design (AD) and Design Computing & Cognition (DCC). He has also practiced as a designer at Zaha Hadid Architects, as a programmer at ARUP with Relational Urbanism (London), and as a creative coder at Convergeo (Lausanne) and anOtherArchitect (Berlin). His forthcoming book “Artificial & Architectural Intelligence in Design” (2020) interrogates the epistemological implications of AI on architecture, and vice versa.

Jeffrey Huang is the Director of the Institute of Architecture at EPFL (as of May 1, 2020), that comprises 25 laboratories and groups in Architecture and the Sciences of the City. He is also the Founding Director of the Media x Design Lab, and a Full Professor in Architecture and Computer Science at EPFL. He holds a DiplArch from ETH Zurich, and Masters and Doctoral Degrees from Harvard University, where he was awarded the Gerald McCue medal for academic excellence. Prior to EPFL, he was an Associate Professor of Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He was also a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s d.school, a Berkman Fellow at Harvard‘s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and the first Head of the Architecture and Sustainable Design Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). Professor Huang’s research examines the convergence of physical and digital architecture. His recent work investigates new artificial design paradigms, theories of experience design, and algorithmic urbanism.

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