As designers, happily embedded in the creative industries, we may feel that our jobs are safe from the looming automation that artificial intelligence (AI) and robots will bring to the job market. For example, explore the BBC’s tool for predicting the likelihood that a robot could take your job, and you will find that design professions are predicted to be relatively safe:
- 11% likelihood for product, clothing and related designers
- 3% likelihood for design and development engineers
- 2% likelihood for architects
With this in mind, announcements from the Government about investment into AI research and the leading role that the UK will play in the future of AI, may not seem relevant to design practice. But despite the BBC’s predictions, developments in artificial intelligence are already having a huge impact on the designed world, through methods known collectively as generative design.
Generative design methods incorporate algorithms to produce complicated forms, for example by mimicking organic processes of natural selection. Designers work alongside computers to produce shapes and forms that would not be possible using traditional methods, and the results will soon be all around us. For example, in
Today, algorithms assist us in our design processes; tomorrow, will robots replace us?
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