Artificial Intelligence

in Design: Past,
Present and Future
Tomáš Kňaze
01412280
T he interest in artificial intelligence has risen and fallen multiple times since its birth in the
1950s. The term was firstly coined in 1956 at a conference at Darthmouth College, when
it was asserted that if all learning could be described precisely enough to a machine, it would
be possible for the machine to replicate it.[1]

The following two decades saw significant advances in computing. Because of that, the
enthusiasm and expectations about AI skyrocketed. So much so that the concept found its way
into the popular culture, with movies like Stanley Kubrik’s 2001: Space Odyssey, further
increasing the popularity of artificial intelligence. Over the 80s and 90s, however, the public’s
interest died down as people realised that the contemporary technology was not advanced
enough.[2] Only the accomplishments in the field in the last decade have shown the potential
that Artificial intelligence has. Its current uses span from personal assistants like Siri to
automatic gearboxes to recognising cancer cells. It has been serving users ads on Facebook
and providing movie suggestions on Netflix for 5
years, gradually learning and improving year by year.
AI has already been utilised in the design sphere as
well, firstly in graphic and web design. Brandmark is
a tool developed by Jack Qiao which uses AI to
design logos based on the user’s specified
characteristics.[3] Adobe Sensei can analyse the
content the designer wants to put on a website and
recommend design elements that are suitable. More
recently, Autodesk is utilising AI in their CAD
software in what is called generative design. It is
essentially a collaboration between the designer and
AI, the designer inputs restrictions and goals that a
component should satisfy and the software generates
basically unlimited number of concepts that the
designer can choose from. Fujitsu’s Monozukuri AI is Figure 1: Chair designed using
used to estimate the number of layers in a PCB, a Autodesk generative design tool [11]
task that would usually require a skilled designer to
make an educated guess based on their previous experience.[4]

The complexity of design related tasks that can be carried out by AI is increasing. This raises a
question: How will the role of a designer change with the development of AI, and, what is
more, will AI replace the designer altogether?

To be able to do that the AI will have to replicate the design process. In order to find where to
create value, the AI could look through the abundance of data that people are generating
every day, a lot of which is available freely on the internet. An AI powered designer could
analyse the data to find areas and products that could be improved. A lot of useful
information could be extracted just from the Amazon product reviews. The AI could then
suggest improvements based on what the current users do not like. To create good concepts,
the AI would have to know what a good design is, which is a debate in itself. Different
designers could teach what they consider to be a good design to the machine through
supervised learning. This is a very difficult technological feat as the machine would need to
understand the complex concept of a ‘design’. It could then evaluate the concepts based on
the previous learning. Because of the large processing power, it could repeat the process
almost indefinitely until perfection. And because it is AI, no bias or preconceptions would be
involved as there might be with a human designer.
This process of listening to users’ problems and suggestions would more likely bring only
marginal improvements instead of big leaps. To achieve more major progress and solve
problems inventiveness and creativity is needed. Teaching creativity to AI is in its very early
stages. German artist Mario Kligemann has designed artificial neural networks to assemble
images based on existing photographs.[5] The AI designer would have to be able to do this,
but with ideas. As Chris Baraniuk put it: “For AI to Get Creative, It Must Learn the Rules—
Then How to Break ‘Em”.[6]

Designers create for people, utilising empathy to understand how the user of their design
might feel, thinks and why they behave in a certain way. A good AI designer will have to be
empathetic. Moreover, there are many complex ethical, contextual and even political factors
that influence the design process which the AI would have to understand.

For AI to fully replace designers, it has to be creative, empathetic, observant and most ideally
living amongst people to observe the real world. This description very closely matches the
definition of artificial general intelligence (AGI) - a machine that could perform any
intellectual task that a human being can. Such a machine has not yet been attempted,
research has gone into narrow artificial intelligence - AI that is good in performing a single
task.[7] Despite all of this, a study carried out by Vincent C. Müller and Nick Bostrom shows
that AI experts predict that there is a 90% chance that this form of intelligence will be
achieved by 2065.[8] A research carried out by scientists from the Future of Humanity
Institute at Oxford University shows that AI researchers believe that there is a 50% chance of
AI automating all human jobs in 120 years.[9]

Figure 2: Timeline of estimates for AI achieving human performance in different professions [12]

Until then, the designers will use AI to their advantage. It is a similar type of opportunity for
the creatives as the release of GUI computers in the 1980s, but in a much larger scale. As
Adrian Shaughnessy put it, the introduction of Macintosh meant “no more mechanical
artwork, no more paste-up, no more typesetters, no more expensive retouchers”[10] for
designers. AI and human designers will both play to their strengths. AI will allow designers to
focus on what they are good at - empathy, creativity, understanding of complex concepts. It
will allow them to look at the bigger picture, focus on what they are trying to accomplish,
while relieving them of the tedious tasks like processing large amounts of data, continual
attention to boring tasks and precision. Whether AI will replace designers completely, we will
have to see. Until then, there is a large potential for it to be a tool to empower them in their
work.
References
1. Moor, J., The Dartmouth College Artificial Intelligence Conference: The Next Fifty
years, AI Magazine, Vol 27, No., 4, Pp. 87-9, 2006

2. Rockwell A. The History of Artificial Intelligence [Internet]. Science in the News. 2017
[cited 2018 Apr 27]. Available from: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/history-
artificial-intelligence/

3. Hongkiat. Brandmark Uses Artificial Intelligence to Design Logos for You [Internet].
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in Product Design. FUJITSU Sci Tech J. 2017;53(4):9. [cited 2018 Apr 27]. Available
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5. Luba Elliott. AI through the Technologist’s Eye [Internet]. Flash Art. 2017 [cited 2018
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[Internet]. Scientific American. [cited 2018 Apr 27]. Available from:
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9. Grace K, Salvatier J, Dafoe A, Zhang B, Evans O. When Will AI Exceed Human

Performance? Evidence from AI Experts. arXiv:170508807 [cs] [Internet]. 2017 May
24 [cited 2018 Apr 27]; Available from: http://arxiv.org/abs/1705.08807

10. Adrian Shaughnessy. Author at Rum & Raisin [Internet]. Rum & Raisin. [cited 2018
Apr 27]. Available from: http://rumandraisin.co/author/adrian-shaughnessy/

11. Autodesk CTO Jeff Kowalski on Generative Design [Internet]. 2016 August 08 [cited
2018 Apr 21]. Available from: https://www.autodeskresearch.com/blog/video-
autodesk-cto-jeff-kowalski-generative-design

12. Grace K, Salvatier J, Dafoe A, Zhang B, Evans O. When Will AI Exceed Human
Performance? Evidence from AI Experts. arXiv:170508807 [cs] [Internet]. 2017 May
24 [cited 2018 Apr 27] Figure 2, Timeline of Median Estimates (with 50% intervals)
for AI Achieving Human Per- formance, p.3. Available from:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1705.08807
Name: Tomáš Kňaze Word Count: 1019