AI in Design and How Does it Work?
“Machines will be taking over our jobs soon!” one article said
“The rate at which AI is developing, we won’t have anything left to do.” said another concerned netizen in one of their tweets.
But the larger looming question persists. One which needs to be addressed before going any further into this topic.
What is AI and how is it shaping the Design landscape?
Artificial intelligence is a machine that can think, learn and behave like humans. It can take any form such as a computer program, software, or machine. Artificial intelligence has been around for quite some time now and it has been used in many different fields such as healthcare, education, business, and entertainment. AI has been used for decades in various industries to automate tasks that are considered repetitive or mundane by humans.
The keyword here is ‘Repetitive’. Ring any bells?
Yes! So any task required to be done repetitively or at a large scale — AI smiles and enters the door in such cases.
Okay, so we have touched base upon what AI is capable of doing in general. By now you must be thinking, “Okay, so how would AI shape Design?”
To answer that, we need to address the Design process in a more detailed manner.
The Design process primarily consists of the Research Phase and The Design phase. And while it looks fairly simple at first glance, it is a complex strategic process involving taking into account many variables and aligning them to achieve a particular purpose, all while making a rocking experience for the user.
So how does AI come into the picture here? Well, remember the multitude of variables we were referring to earlier? Sometimes it gets humanly difficult to foresee every variable (or think out of the box as they say) before designing for it. This is exactly where AI can come into the picture.
AI can be used to generate ideas and directions at scale, which, when layered with Human thinking and creativity, would change the landscape of how we Design.
Practical Applications
Generative Design
Generative Design is a new way of designing products and buildings. It uses algorithms to generate a range of possible designs that can then be refined by the designer.
The process starts with the designer defining a set of rules for how the design should work and then lets the computer generate a range of potential designs. The designer can then refine these designs by changing parameters, such as size or colour until they find one that they like.
This process has been used for designing everything from buildings to furniture to clothes.
A small example of how it is already shaping the automobile and furniture design industry.
Applications in other fields of Design
While the previous examples of generative design are specific to the fields of Product Design, the same principles apply to other disciplines of Design as well. Since the blueprint of the design process is the same for different disciplines, we can one day hope to see Generative Design shape other disciplines and sub-branches of Design currently thought to be out of the reach of AI.
For example,
People have already started building models on Open GPT3 which creates wireframes based on a requirement a user writes!
Check this out: GPT-3 × Figma plugin
So as you can imagine, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the application of AI to the Design process.
How do I take control of my creative process through AI?
The AI revolution is happening, but it is not going to happen without us. We are the ones who will decide how AI will affect our lives and how we want it to affect our lives.
We can take control of our creative process by using artificial intelligence (AI) to help us generate ideas and get rid of creative blocks.
Creativity and emotions are two things that AI models cannot do for us (yet!). We need to take control of our creative process and find a way to make it work for us. It is up to us to make sure that we are not wasting time using AI for processes that need the human lens.
There is a lot of talk about the future of design because AI can now assist humans more efficiently. They can get rid of creative blocks and generate ideas at scale which makes them very useful, but they should not be seen as a replacement for humans.
To get the most out of AI, we need to be aware of what we are doing and most importantly what the AI isn’t.
