AI in Interior Design
Like many people, I grew up in the before times; before cell phones, before social media, before you had to worry about a computer taking your job. I vividly remember picking up my brother from school one day and my mother’s pager kept going off. She ranted about how she’ll never get a cell phone, fast forward to today, phones are practically ingrained to our bodies.
As we enter the next big wave of tech, we’re seeing AI sweep in and touch every inch of our lives. In this blog, we’ll talk about our philosophy, the environmental impacts, and the future of AI.
The Dark Side and Downfalls
It feels like it’s being shoved down our throats every time we turn around.
In my opinion, it’s all just a fad that has become too available, too quickly, with little to no regulation. Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely a time and a place for this type of technology, however, it should not be as accessible as it is…especially this early on in it’s development. We hope it's only being used for good but let’s be realistic here, it isnt. Anyone can use this tech for anything they want, good or bad, or illegal. AI and deepfakes are the leading tech for scammers, fraud, and theft. This article by the National Academy of Professional Studies has a fantastic view into the dark side of AI and why it can be so dangerous.
Without oversight or regulation, it’s being used by millions in their every day life.
There’s no clear understanding of what this rapid deployment of tech is doing to our Earth. We know that it demands excessive energy use, somewhere between five and eight times as much as a typical computer. We know that it requires potable water to cool it’s systems. But do we really know the scale of those demands? The lack of transparency about the environmental impacts means that a typical user doesn’t have much reason to question their use.
Take a look at these stats and tell me you think it’s sustainable.
Source: The Sustainable Agency
A single AI-generated image can use as much energy as half of a smartphone charge.
The computing power required for AI is doubling every 100 days and is projected to increase by a million times over the next 5 years. (SPJ, 2023).
There is nothing sustainable about this.
Our philosophy on AI
There’s a plethora of videos online of people promoting AI for interior design; saying it’s “revolutionizing” the industry and ranking the programs you “absolutely need”. In my opinion, it’s all sales bs.
There is one huge pro to AI in interior design…
It makes design and decorating more accessible to the general public. That’s a wonderful thing! Everyone should be able to live in an environment they feel good in.
But let’s not forget it’s downfalls…
It allows anyone to upload their photo and write a prompt. They’ll have a rendering of what their space could look like, but it isn’t developed enough to take into consideration the basics: scale, measurements, feasibility. It’ll have you believing that you can fit that big sectional, in reality, there’s absolutely no way. Not to mention, generating images is one of the most energy and carbon intensive AI based tasks.
You can upload your office plan to make it more efficient, but then you’ll probably have the bathroom right beside the conference room and any human could tell you, you do not want those next to each other.
It can generate a color palette for you and give you ideas but it can’t tell you how to accomplish it with pieces in real life. Just because “design” is available to the masses, does not mean it is going to be executed correctly.
In my opinion, AI is a regurgitation of past ideas and concepts the program has been fed. It cannot creatively come up with unique solutions to real-life problems because it doesn’t understand human experience. It’s overused without being consistent, accurate, or well-developed. Taken at face value, it’s not an efficient tool for the cost it requires.
Damewood will not use AI for any aspect of our design work. We value human touch, human experience, and design for realistic, achievable solutions.
Why human touch will be the new luxury
As AI tech becomes easier to use and more integrated into society interacting with another human will become more rare. There is something innate within us as humans to want to connect with other humans. The personalized understanding of someone’s needs, wants, desires, and let’s be honest, pain points, can’t be properly communicated to a computer. It may recognize it as a parameter but that doesn’t mean it understands the value or reason behind it.
There’s something truly special that human touch creates through personalized understanding.
The expertise that comes from years of experience can’t be replaced by a program. The ability to read body language, to pivot at the drop of a hat, to mediate decisions between clients, to spatially feel an environment and know why it isn’t working, the list could go on forever…
The designers that create on a deeper level, they’ll always have work because AI can’t do what they do.
The real luxury is about to be having a true professional touch.
We’ll be sharing more opinion pieces soon but if you have a specific topic you’d like to hear our input on, let us know by emailing emmy@damewooddesigns.com.
Cheers!
xx - Emmy
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