Hit Books: AI can help us create green, white buildings for tomorrow

In his new book, SuperSight: What Does Further Truth Mean for Our Lives, Occupations, and How We Think of the Future?, Author David Rose explores the current state of increasing technology, discusses how technology is already transforming hundreds of industries – from food to medicine to education to construction and construction – and what can be achieved in the near future. In the section below, Rose looks at two companies that use computer vision and equipment networks to reconsider what existed as smart homes of the 21st century.

Taken with permission from SuperSight: What Does Further Truth Mean for Our Lives, Occupations, and How We Think of the Future? by David Rose, published by BenBella Books.

We all need to use a solar panel. Time. The average price of stable electricity has dropped by about 70% in the last decade, from $ 5.86 / watt to $ 1.50 / watt, so it is economically difficult. With no money, you can pay to set up and start saving $ 100 a month for the first month, and beyond if you live in the south.

So why aren’t we here? It’s hard! Math, management, taxation, and beauty all work. Many homeowners are afraid that this will make their homes shiny and shiny like Tin Man from Wizard of Oz. The process of calculating the number of panels in the size you need requires learning “solar speech” in unknown categories such as kilowatt-hours. And change always comes with risks, whether real or imagined.

The Boston-based company Soston climate change project is getting people to install electricity in their homes. This means solar panels on your roof, electric car, home battery maker, eye protector, and smart sensor that cools or heats you when you go home. And they have teamed up with us at Continuum to make clients feel comfortable with the idea by showing them what their home-connected home would look like. Using Google Home satellite imagery, we grow solar panels, wrap them in a customer’s roof, and then show them how their papers will look on the street with their neighbors’ fences. We then draw pictures and combine them with data from Project Sunroof, a Google project that helps you figure out how to protect your roof from the sun. Once you look at the beautiful pictures of your electric home and realize how much money you will save over the years – and you have realistic and financial data in hand – it is an easy decision to move forward and make that change.

Other home improvement projects will benefit from a similar approach to SuperSight-envisioned. Let’s think about site design: another complex, potentially costly project with its own confusing language, risks, and the need to preview a project before it happens.

I met landlord Julie Moir-Messervy at a MIT competition and immediately became fascinated with her work: giving homeowners the confidence and equipment they need to turn their empty yard into an outdoor living space. His company, HomeOutside, helps people see new opportunities for their backyards using AI and computer vision. When they see their club under duress, the company makes it easier for them to achieve the vision by hiring founders, acquiring supplies, and assisting with the distribution of funds over time.

Landscaping is not good for property prices; greenscapes filter out airborne pathogens that cause asthma, help people recover faster, reduce summer temperatures, and reduce crime. Proper preparation helps keep bees and birds at bay, which in turn removes pollen from trees and plants. Trees in the southwest shade can reduce the need for air conditioning, and northeastern fences block frostbite — and heating costs. Most trees mean the capture of more carbon – a ton in the life of every tree – as it absorbs the harmful substances we make from the atmosphere and reduces runoff and erosion.

But “most people do not do anything in their arenas because they do not know where to start,” Julie told me. “They do not know which plants to choose and how to prepare them, or they may not know how to set up and maintain a place over time.” I was so encouraged to deal with my situation that I accepted his offer and started working full-time.

HomeOutside is training generative adversarial networks (GAN) to create their own beautiful and durable designs, based on the thousands of designs (think of this as recipes) that the company has created for customers over the past 20 years and beyond. The company uses Google Earth Engine and photogrammetry to begin 3D rendering at any address (US only, for now). The GAN architecture then uses one network (Generator) to create a new design, and another network (Discriminator) to execute or record the work. The two networks continue their repetitive games, releasing and then scoring, until the selector decides that the site is in good shape: shade trees, natural pollen, play grass, hardscapes / decks and meeting chairs, various types of plants, and so on.

The companies that sell plants, furniture, lighting, and hardscapes are obviously interested in the technology of the “imagination engine”, because it connects the difference between the current human field and what it can be – thus encouraging more people to create real dreams. It was not good for homeowners and exporters, either – it was good for the environment, too. But the fact that the company’s investors are more focused on the environment they find more interesting in the project and the opportunity to change the landscape of all areas. What if we created a new park with millions of species in the backyard that connect bird and bee colonies? Each acre of forest takes up about 2.5 tons of carbon a year. What if we turn regions into carbon dioxide zones?

I helped Julie and her team create a comprehensive HomeOutside project to quickly renovate up to $ 70 million, and then work with Home Depot, Lowe’s, Wayfair, IKEA, and the field to send their customers an email to renovate their 3D yard. Customers simply walk out of their homes, turn on their cell phones, and, using the global anchor app, pass through the visible areas of their yard. Long-term observations from sunrise to sunset show why the food garden is located where it is located. The snow pattern explains the selection of new juniper trees between their yard and their neighbors. Spring flowers bloom with cacophony color.

Will people be intimidated by the idea of ​​an algorithm for redesigning their yard, with new photo booths and pollen grains? It’s not as if your front yard is private now, thanks to Google Street View. And if you are selling your home, you may choose not to hire a developer and simply choose to post HomeOutside-type photos instead to minimize your appeal.

Once this technology is realized, many segments begin to take advantage of opportunities. Home Depot, for example, has invested in a Hover startup, which, after you paint your home in 3D, detects and cuts down new wood paints, tiles, and roofing tiles. SuperSight will soon be showing the painters on their stairs, completing the last few quotes, in order to experience the thrill of the work that has just been completed. Volkswagen could put a new Passat on your way, complete with kayak and mountain bikes that know you love the top. And the company is trying to sell you home and car insurance? They have shown tragic events: the solar panels have collapsed, a shady tree has been struck by lightning, and your new Passat has been shaken by a hurricane. It is best to buy insurance before painting again.

How can we connect with other types of deep designs? With our SuperSight-enabled glasses, will we point and set prices, or paint flowers from a selection panel, such as 3D Photoshop? Will we choose every plant from a large selection of options to adjust and modify our preferences, or will we simply tell the system we like to learn what we like, and then create one solution that we like? I believe in the path of happiness: that we love to see a number of “creative” choices and choose between them, as we do today when working with an architect, interior designer, or wedding planner.

Experts are often skilled at what they do so it is often a mistake to explain too much. For example, you should not tell an architect if you want a window exactly here, or an interior designer that you want this chair in some form in this corner. Instead, you present your ideas at the highest level (“I want the room to feel more relevant to nature”) or by explaining the essential function (“We want a vegetable garden”), and allow them to work in more detail. .

The same expertise led by experts will control our relationships with SuperSight AI. In landscaping, we can ask for a well-established French garden with well-designed and well-designed fences, or a twisted natural landscape that prioritises privacy for our neighbors. We can show our love for the garden, or the plot filled with more orchards. And when we display the above preferences, our 3D rendering also counts to suit our preferences. With SuperSight Glasses, we can test our search speed by seeing the instantaneous redesign and the status quo, decorated with our real home.

Judges are still wondering if HomeOutside can use this technology to entice millions of homeowners to spend more money on permanent locations. This experiment is promising, however; Customers are thrilled to see their venues being considered and redesigned. Over the next five years, HomeOutside plans to use Google Earth and street view images in an AI-based tool that transforms millions of landscapes, with established vegetation, picture trees, natural pollen grains, and bird orchard fruit. If possible, it means that millions of homeowners will plant about 3 million new deciduous trees, such as oak and beehives, each cost about 48 pounds of carbon a year when they mature. That’s 14 billion tons of carbon stored during the lifetime of these trees.

As one of HomeOutside’s consultants put it succinctly, “You’re building a parallel to the National Park – us!

It is SuperSight’s most powerful force: helping people to think and think about a future that benefits themselves and the world.