Dear all,
I personally think that the role of a designer will change dramatically in the near future:
There are hints that "creative" work will be at least partially automated, there are already "AI" developed movie-scripts*, songs** and being part of the creative team for advertising***.
There are also other breakthroughs in "AI", most of which seem to be based on 'numerical crunching', i.e. to analyse a large amount of data and draw conclusions. This has been evident in cancer-research, etc. Now, IF someone builds a program to help you gather AND analyse the data, to help you make the creative leap, it will trivialise the early stages of product design / [creative activity]. I doubt the programs still might not be able do the creative leap, other than crunching numbers, which might look like the creative leap.
Having a program to do math, (i.e. automatic material/structure strength calculations, automating all of the parameters behind the actual design) would of course help. There are examples, such as with SPICE in EE already, and I think design will benefit from those as well, however the programs should then support the designers way of thinking. At least the engineering programs still allow the engineer to create crazy circuits. Worst fear I have is that such a program might insists that "no, that arc should not go there because a more direct line here is more efficient". The question being, does it allow failure, to show which direction would be interesting to develop further, or does it force the implementation? If it's a tool for actual development and not for research, then probably latter.
I (try to) teach my students to cope with the complexity of technology, and to keep an open mind towards changes such as these. While the main focus is on prototyping, being able to communicate the requirements of their interactable product, i.e. how and why to implement it in a specific way is at the core. This helps when they develop products in a multi-disciplinary team, and perhaps helps when the AI is advanced enough. I very much think that there will be at least these three kinds in the very near future:"research AI" (acting as a source, analysing from a vast archive of knowledge), "generative AI" (to create suggestions based on input) and "creative AI" (creating concepts independently from a source).
Br,
D.Sc. (Tech.) Jussi Mikkonen
(I'm sorry, I'm currently commuting, and the internet is shoddy at best, the links are not exactly academic:
*
http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/06/an-ai-wrote-this-movie-and-its-strangely-moving/
**
http://www.livescience.com/56328-how-artificial-intelligence-wrote-pop-song.html
***
http://adage.com/article/creativity/check-commercial-mccann-japan-ai-creative-director/304320/
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Don Norman [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 November 2016 20:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Designers in the 22nd century
Getting away from the design of book covers to the more general discussion
of automation and machine intelligence.
I believe that automated design tools of the future will change the way
designers work, allowing designers to concentrate upon their creativity and
overall judgment instead of their skill at mechanical tasks and even at the
traditional craft skills of drawing, and materials, etc.
I've been talking with the folks at Autodesk: consider their Dreamcatcher
(DC) program.
https://autodeskresearch.com/projects/dreamcatcher
Here, the designer states the goals and constraints and DC produces
candidates. The designer critiques them, rejecting some encouraging others,
perhaps modifying the goals and constraints as the designer comes to
understand how they impact the suggested results. DC uses an AI technique
called Genetic Algorithm to develop thousands of alternatives, modifying
its suggestions based upon feedback from the designer.
DC is especially powerful in developing suggestions for items manufactured
by additive techniques, where the materials are unusual or varied, and
where leaving holes and open spaces can reduce cost and weight without
impacting strength or thermal capability (actually, it can enhance thermal
capability). DC can do all sorts of calculations during the design for
strength, rigidity, flexibility, heat transfer, weight, cost ..
simultaneously considering them while doing the design. It is ideal at
creating biomimicry, not by deliberate mimicry but because it is not
constrained by the need to do linear components, straight lines and rigid
angles. It's natural domain is that of smooth curves.
The point I want to make is not that you will all like the resulting
designs, but that this is an early example of a design tools that replaces
much of the detailed handwork of the designer (using, say, a standard CAD
tool) with the higher-level judgment and sensibilities of the designer.
Designers can now think at a higher level.
This has long ago happened in engineering, where instead of spending long
hours with a slide rule, integral tables, and hand calculators, engineers
can now think of the real problem, write down the equations and give them
to the machine to solve and plot -- even complex calculus equations. The
engineers no longer have to do the tedious mechanical part of mathematics
but can concentrate upon the objects they are designing, doing things that
were never possible before these powerful computational tools.
DC is still immature. I discuss it not to promote it, but rather as an
example of a tool that will drastically modify the job of many designers.
At this point it is quite limited, but it is a good indicator of what the
future will bring.
Will this replace designers? Yes, it will replace those who only have
low-level skills. But for the rest of us, it will empower us to do
ever-more exciting and interesting designs.
Don
Don Norman
Prof. and Director, DesignLab, UC San Diego
[log in to unmask] designlab.ucsd.edu/ www.jnd.org <http://www.jnd.org/>
Multiple faculty positions in design at UC San Diego
http://d.ucsd.edu/jobs/
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