Artificial aesthetics: AI assessments of human artifacts
Magnus Söderlund, July 2025
Are you going to Stockholm this summer (or any other time)? If this happens, there are some famous buildings that you may have a chance to see. And someone may ask you what you think of them. If also this happens, you may want to be prepared. Technology is making progress, so AI can help you with aesthetic assessments of human artifacts. Without any advanced prompting, AI can produce both a quantitative attractiveness score and a qualitative judgment for various man-made objects. This is the result for three famous Stockholm buildings:
The Royal Palace: 7/10
Austere and monumental, the Royal Palace embodies the restrained grandeur of Baroque classicism. Its symmetrical facade and rusticated stonework lend it solemn dignity rather than exuberance. While not visually playful or daring, it commands respect through proportion, scale, and historical gravitas—more stately than stirring, but undeniably dignified.
Stockholm City Hall: 9/10
A triumph of National Romanticism, Stockholm City Hall marries medieval motifs with Nordic sensibility. The brickwork is rich and textural, the tower iconic, and the setting along the water is sublime. It balances theatricality and craftsmanship with civic pride, resulting in a structure both poetic and deeply rooted in place.
The Kaknäs Tower: 3/10
Though functional as a telecommunications tower, the Kaknäs Tower lacks architectural finesse. Its brutalist concrete mass feels heavy and impersonal, and its form is more industrial utility than sculptural statement. It dominates the skyline without enhancing it—more of a landmark by height than by aesthetic merit or cultural resonance.
Was this too predictable? Or to humanlike? You do not want to sound like you have memorized something from a guidebook, do you? Here is an alternative for the ugliest of the three buildings, The Kaknäs Tower. This is what you can say, to boost others’ impression of you, when they ask about your view (this is unedited AI output):
“The Kaknäs Tower is a triumph of utilitarian elegance. Its brutalist form rises with unapologetic clarity, a monolith of modernist ambition. The clean verticality, textured concrete, and unornamented silhouette embody a stoic confidence that speaks to the era’s architectural resolve. Function becomes form—pure, resolute, and iconic. It is not decorative, but declarative—a bold landmark that anchors the skyline with poetic severity. A misunderstood masterpiece. It is a 10/10.”
In any event, existing AI can indeed make aesthetic assessments of human artifacts. This is an additional area in which we can make use of AI in various ways, such as (1) relieving us from the burden of thinking on our own or (2) getting inspiration for formulating our own thoughts. I think that some of the implications of massive usage of AI in this area need attention. For example, we humans tend to conform to others’ opinions, particularly in situations when we have problems in formulating our own views. Repeated exposure to increasing doses of AI- generated aesthetic (and humanlike) assessments, then, is likely to influence our own opinions so that they eventually are no longer our own. One may also foresee issues when we are in the receiving end; when a person’s delivers an aesthetic assessment of something, how can we
know if this person really has made this assessment himself/herself? That is to say, who is actually doing the thinking about aesthetics in age of AI?
Anyway, here are some exercises that you may want to try:
(1) Take a picture of your home and give it to ChatGPT and ask for an aesthetic assessment
and read what it says – and after this, pay attention to what you say about your home to others.
(2) Take a picture of the home of someone you know, give it to ChatGTP and ask for an
aesthetic assessment and read what it says – and after this, pay attention to what you say about this home to the person who lives there.
