It has been nearly a century since the publication of Walter Benjamin’s influential work The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in which Benjamin delineates the destabilizing relationship between emerging technology and the expression of cultural meaning through art.1 Artworks for Benjamin were rooted in the unique space, time, history, and material context in which they were created. Mechanically reproducing such works served the privileged relationship between artifact and observer—unmooring the work of art from its originating center and the source of its meaning. Unlike the reproduction technologies discussed by Benjamin, we find ourselves in an emerging age of autonomous reproduction. Generative AI models do not simply create copies but use statistical patterns learned from vast datasets to create new artifacts that have never existed. Like the copies Benjamin assails, these creations are similarly unmoored from an originating material/historical context, a narrative of creation, and a specific human intention. What happens to cultural expression and meaning when an army of AI agents can mass-generate our images, objects, and environments? What is the role of the architect in this era of autonomous reproduction? How should the architectural discipline equip itself to navigate this new terrain?
