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Monica said: > So a novice desginer might be solving a > simple problem and an expert designer might be solving a > complicated problem, while both are solving the same problem. And John said> > I disagree with this. If the expert designer treats the problem in > such a way that it changes the nature of the problem, then it > must be a different problem........They have > re-drawn the boundary of the problem they are working on, and > hence it is a different problem. I feel that this is the core of our debate. John accepted half of my requirement for a designing artefact (solving the problem) but, since he chose to ignore what I feel is the most important requirement (identifying the problem, or as Monica puts it, identifying a rich version of the problem), I have to disagree with him. The "wickedness" test seems to be the most important one and that includes the idea that the problem can't be pinned down at the start, there may be many possible ways to develop it and crucially "no stopping rules". I don't feel comfortable with bringing in contemporary debates about AI because they bring a lot of baggage that quickly takes us out of our area of competence as designers. I would rather concentrate on the question of how we would recognise a designing artefact - what's our Turing test? That would be a valid and useful thing for us to offer anybody who wants to pursue the challenge. If it also poses a challenge to human designers to demonstrate that they too are more than automata then so much the better. I have seen no evidence that AI is anywhere near the the point where it could produce a designing artefact. However I tend to believe that the kind of incremental expertise-based development that John described in kicking off this part of the discussion (the Deep Blue approach?) is unlikely to get us there since it is only an encapsulation of its designers' ideas and knowledge. On the other hand I can believe that a learning machine might get there one day although it will be as dependent on its sensory and manipulative powers as it is on its brain structure. best wishes from Sheffield Chris Rust *************************************** Professor Chris Rust Head of Art and Design Research Centre Sheffield Hallam University Psalter Lane Sheffield S7 1SF, UK +44 114 225 2686 [log in to unmask] www.chrisrust.net