How can we understand generative AI through the lens of architectural history? Through connections beginning in the 1960s, architects collaborated with AI researchers and engineers, referencing writings about AI in their work on systems that generate systems. In this talk, Molly Steenson traces the conceptual roots of generative AI in the 1960s–80s work of Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Nicholas Negroponte, Cedric Price, and others.

Dr. Molly Wright Steenson is a designer, author, professor, and international speaker. She is President and CEO of the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis and Honorary Consul for Sweden for Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, and Nebraska.

She is the author of Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape (MIT Press, 2017), which tells the radical history of AI’s impact on design and architecture, and Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press, 2019), co-edited with Laura Forlano & Mike Ananny.

At Carnegie Mellon University, where she has been on faculty since 2015 (currently on leave), she was Vice Provost for Faculty, the inaurgural K&L Gates Associate Professor of Ethics and Computational Technologies, Senior Associate Dean for Research for the College of Fine Arts, and an associate professor in the School of Design (courtesy appointment, School of Architecture).

She was also an assistant professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a professor at the groundbreaking design school, the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy, and an adjunct professor at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in the Media Design Practices master’s program.

A web pioneer since 1994, she’s worked at groundbreaking design studios, consultancies, and Fortune 500 companies. She holds a PhD in Architecture from Princeton University, a Master’s in Environmental Design (architectural history) from Yale School of Architecture, and a BA in German from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with honors and distinction.

(Photo Credit: Andy Johanson)