Dear Gunnar,
Here is how I decode these passages:
(1)
—snip—
[Terry Love wrote:] If designers start using maths to manage abstractions of behaviours of designed objects, criteria and characteristics and then use maths to abstract the behaviours of those abstractions THEN there starts to emerge an advantage in favour of humans. This is because abstractions of the behavior of abstractions about objects means the objects being addressed by humans (abstracts of abstractions) potentially represent large numbers of objects and hence massively increase the rate of variety. More importantly, the maths can be used to focus selection of elements towards optimal solutions - of advantage in competing against brute force management of variety.
—snip—
Decoded: Computers can solve problems using massive abstract data sets. If human beings learn to work with fluent, expressive mathematics, they will be able to perform some mathematical functions that give them an advantage over computers with respect to massive abstract data sets.
BUT
(2)
—snip—
[Terry Love wrote:] Remember if computers can learn to produce designs on the basis of best designs and best design practices of the best designers, it is going to be increasingly harder to stay ahead of the creative designs of the computers.
—snip—
Decoded: Computers will soon perform most design services that human designers now perform. Because computers will continue to advance rapidly, it will be difficult for human designers to stay ahead of computers.
From these two propositions, I draw these conclusions. I do not agree that these propositions are true, but if they are, these conclusions follow:
(3)
In a propositional world were computers can perform most design services at a satisfactory level, most customers will meet their design needs by having a computer do the work. If they do not themselves wish to purchase the computing power and the programs that do this work, they will pay a computer company of some kind to do it on a by-the-job basis, much as they now hire designers.
(4)
In this propositional world, a few high-level designers with advanced mathematical skills may find employment in firms with massive design budgets. Some designers will succeed in freelance design practice.
(5)
In this propositional world, design schools and design students face one of two likely futures.
(5.1) In this propositional world, the first likely future is that millions of students continue to study design with an added component of mathematics. In this propositional world, however, computers do most of the design work, so nearly none of the graduates of these programs will find work as designers. Today, one hundred design students in every thousand are working as designers ten years after graduation. In a world where computers do provide most design services at a lower cost than humans, this number will shrink to something like one in a thousand or possibly one in ten thousand.
(5.2) In this propositional world, the second likely future is even simpler. In a propositional world where computers do most design work, there will be no need for design programs and design schools. There may be room for a few dozen elite design schools that train designers with fluent, high-level mathematical skills.
The notion that we will continue to train several million design students worldwide as we do today would make no sense in this propositional world.
For a simple comparison, consider the effect that computers had on draftsmen in architecture. Many young architects were employed as draftsmen in architecture studios. These jobs vanished as computers took over much of that work. Many of these people no longer work as architects. If these people had learned both architecture and advanced mathematics, they would no longer be unemployed architects – they would be unemployed architects with advanced mathematical skills.
In my view, this propositional world makes relatively little sense. It has to do with a view of design that bears no relation to the way designers work or the services they provide. Computers are changing design practice, but so far, I see no evidence that the kinds of advanced, abstract, second order mathematics that Terry describes will help most designers to work better.
Yours,
Ken
--
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | University email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Private email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts | James Cook University | Townsville, Australia
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