AI and the future of design

What does the future look like? We all know the answer to that one. No one knows. But the whole topic just got seriously more exciting. Or did it?

I’ve been lucky enough to experience transitional phases of product design throughout my career, as technology has evolved; and, for me, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is just another string in the bow. When it comes to AI and its application in design, we have already really seen a step change.?

?Whenever I have worked on any project, my first question is to assert and identify my audience, think intricately about what trends are occurring and likely to be in place for that future consumer. How will that impact my design for a new-age, ever-changing modernist society? As of now, this, in theory, thanks to AI, can be wiped out.

AI is already having a profound impact on the design industry. It’s providing us designers with new techniques that can enhance creativity and productivity, it can quantify and compute vast amounts of data the likes of which we’ve never been able to do before, it can also evaluate (really damn well) user data and provide recommendations and feedback tailored specifically to you.

The very factors you’d think would be a drawback to AI, aren’t. The idea that it doesn’t inherently have a brain capable of creativity or understanding like a human, isn’t necessarily true, it actually can help designers identify trends in consumer behaviour, which may be used to optimise designs and reduce costs.

New video detailing Frank’s design projects over the past year can be found here

It goes without saying that of course there are actually potential drawbacks to AI in design, but perhaps not the ones you’re thinking of.

For me, we are in real danger that AI will wipe away innovation and creativity and that we enter into an era of homogenisation, where computer algorithms create designs that will eventually all look quite similar. But the biggest danger is the potential to exacerbate existing inequalities.

Essentially, if AI algorithms become biased, for example, if it is trained on data that primarily represents the preferences of a particular demographic group, this can lead to decisions that result in products that are designed to be less inclusive and accessible to other groups.

As humans, we all have responsibilities to consider the ethical implications of our work, whereas a well-trained AI system will happily forgo conscious and unconscious bias.

We all have to be mindful of the potential risks and take steps to mitigate them and one way that designers can shape the development of AI is by taking a more active role in the design of the systems themselves.

Designers have such a unique perspective on user experiences, and we actually have the ability to provide valuable insights into how AI can be used to create products that are more intuitive and responsive to consumers. We can collectively collaborate and create a system of AI technology which is ethical, inclusive, and user-focused.

Put simply. AI is a tool.

We are blessed with a world full of choices. Yet within the car industry, there is a real status quo ethos that exists, it’s all evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Even with something as fundamentally innovative or progressive as electric vehicles, most OEMs still only want to simply make current cars and styles ‘better’. The trouble is, the world is growing faster than that, tastes are changing, people are looking for more efficient and clever solutions to their needs and if car makers aren’t careful, they’ll become obsolete.

Lots of us have great ideas to solve everyday problems, what we'd all like to do is make those ideas happen, effectively democratising innovation. In larger organisations, the guys and girls in ties suffocate ideas they don’t understand or which threaten the status quo. There’s a stifling of creativity.

AI is a tool for enhancing creativity and boosting productivity, increasing efficiency, and it’s here to stay…long live the future!

www.frankstephenson.com