From Rough Type:
“The built environment is an $8 trillion per year industry that is
still basically artisanal.” So said Astro Teller, head of the Google X
research lab, during a speech
at South by Southwest last week. Reading that sentence in isolation,
you might assume that Teller intended it as praise, that he was was
applauding the field of architecture for maintaining its heritage of
craftsmanship, skill, and artistry. But you would be wrong. Being “still
basically artisanal” is, for Teller, a great flaw. It’s a symptom
of both a debilitating lack of software-mediated routinization and a
tragic superfluity of quirky human talent. Artisanality is a problem
that Google is seeking to solve. One Google X project, Teller explained,
is intended “to fix the way buildings are designed and built by
building, basically, an expert system, a software Genie if you will,
that could take your needs for the building and design the building for
you.” By getting all those messy and outmoded artisans out of the
picture, replacing them with tidy software algorithms, we’ll be able
to avoid the inefficiency and waste that inevitably accompany human
effort....MORE
HT: Nextbank's
Petervan's Delicacy's who also get a belated tip d'chapeau for
"The plot to replace the internet".
