Hi Glenn,
The automata problem also fascinated me. The conclusions I came to was that
it isn't intrinsically a conflict. It doesn't 'automate' design, and, it
points up a problem in the politics of how design has been defined.
Radically, the automata problem suggests a need to redefine design activity
in a way that is independent of the hegemony of traditions of design
practice and the education of practitioners.
My reasoning on it went something like this (it's in my PhD thesis):
The solution to the problem is pointed to by one theorem of finite automata
that states (If I remember right it's something like!),
"If a problem can be expressed in variables in the language of finite
automata then a solution can be found by manipulation of those variables
using that language"
One way of looking at this, is that the use of automata does not automate
the activity of designing as a whole and human design activity does not
disappear. Simply, the location of design activity and the types of design
skills required to 'do design' change.
The locus of design problems changes to 'designing the original _problem_ as
a representation in the language of finite automata' (rather than designing
representations of solutions in the languages of sketching, engineering
drawing, etc).
The skills required of a design practitioner are then the skills to envisage
a solution, which is the representation of the original problem in the
language of finite automata. These design skills are very different skills
from those currently taught to budding designers or possessed by the current
generation of 'traditional' design practitioners. The gap is not so great
when seen from within engineering design fields b3casue there has already
been an historical shift from craft tools to more abstract representational
manipulation in for example understanding shape, movement and product
behaviours, and in optimising solutions.
This idea that the scope if design activity changes is also a useful
perspective for solving several other problems in the area of defining 'what
is design'. In particular, it mutually locates the activities of design
practice and design research. The focus of design research is to improve and
'automate' current design practices and skills. This offers the possibility
and opportunity for designers to drop old design practices and to take up
new, more effective, more advanced, design practices.
Locating the automata issue in a longer-term picture, design practices have
changed a lot over time. The changes over single generations, however, have
been relatively small and accommodated by professional development. This has
lead in each generation to an illusion and a desire among practitioners and
educators to define 'design' as whatever design practitioners do at this
moment. Taking the long view and including the automata issue suggests it is
better to define 'design' independently of what we as designers think is
design from looking at our practice.
Thoughts?
Cheers,
Terry
===
(c) Dr. Terence Love
Dept of Design
Curtin University
Tel/Fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629 (Home office)
Mobile: 0434975 848
[log in to unmask]
===
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, 14 January 2006 2:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Robotic thought
Please excuse the following stream of thought:
If design becomes 100% digital it can be recorded.
If recorded it can be 'replicated'.
Following on from Chess - should design become a machine specific 'talent'
do we begin to live in a world designed by automata?
This may sound crazy until we consider products that are already beyond
human comprehension - like the desktop.
The only thing a computer program can not be born with is talent.
Eom.
--------------------------
Glenn Johnson
Director, B/E Aerospace Industrial Design Studio
tel. +1 336 744 3143
fax. +1 336 744 3207
|