Abstract:

Artificial intelligence has developed vertiginously in recent years and its presence in human life has increased noticeably. Its performance in activities whose execution was believed to be exclusively human beings is surprising. Architecture is one of these activities. Even though the interference of artificial intelligence currently does not represent a risk for architecture professionals, there are certain objections by students regarding its incorporation as a design tool. Is there, as it is with pictorial works, a bias against computer-generated architecture works? This is, specifically, the objective of this study: the identification and presence of a cognitive bias against architectural works generated by artificial intelligence and the identification of whether this bias is modulated based on expertise. To address this, an online survey was applied. It consisted of a series of concepts through which photographs of architectural works produced by artificial intelligence and by humans, labeled as being produced by artificial intelligence or by humans, were assessed. The survey was answered by 40 students, half of them in the beginning of their architectural studies and half at the end of their studies. The results suggest that there is a generalized bias against architectural works generated by artificial intelligence, since those stimuli labeled as produced by an artificial intelligence received a lower evaluation than their counterparts labeled as produced by a human. Valuations also varied according to the expertise. As a whole, the results suggest that the bias that has been found before against pictorial works generated by artificial intelligence is also present in architecture; and support the line that their presence is modified with the expertise. The results might be of interest to scholars and professionals in the field of architecture, and will contribute to opening new paths in the teaching and application of artificial intelligence technologies in architecture.

Keywords:

Education, Architecture, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Bias, Computer-art Bias.