The Disruption of AI in the Field of Design
In the past few months, the topic of AI has received enormous attention from the public, it is taking the world by storm. With the rapid evolution and maturation of deep learning throughout the past decade, AI has become a powerful tool that has the potential to revolutionise many industries. From AlphaGo’s historic victory against a human world champion in the game of Go, to the development of advanced language models like ChatGPT, AI has made significant strides in its ability to perform complex tasks that were previously thought to be exclusive to human intelligence.
The term “Artificial Intelligence” was first coined in 1950s, when computer scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers came together with the goal of building self-learning systems that could solve complex problems requiring human-like intelligence. Despite the fact that AI has been around for more than half a century, it is only in recent years that we have seen significant breakthroughs in its capabilities.
Nowadays, the term “AI” seems to be thrown around everywhere, with everyone discussing its potential impact on various industries and job markets. For example, designers may be concerned about whether AI will replace their jobs, or how it can be integrated into the design process. Others may be curious about what the future holds for design as AI continues to evolve.
In this article, we will explore these questions and delving into the ways in which AI is transforming the world of design and how it can be used as a tool to enhance creativity and problem-solving.
AI — Is it just pure hype?
The Gartner Hype Cycle is a graphical tool used to illustrate the evolution of technology from its inception to its widespread adoption. This cycle is an essential guide for businesses and individuals who want to understand the potential impact of emerging technologies.
Conversational and image creation AI like ChatGPT and Dall E are considered to be in the early stages of development, which is the“Innovation trigger phase”. At this stage, there is a lot of hype surrounding the technology, with many individuals and businesses gaining interests and investing resources in exploring its full potential.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI recently tweeted “the amount of intelligence in the universe double every 18 months” and made reference to “Moore’s Law” which implies that we are entering an era of exponential growth in the field of AI, with technological advancements taking place at an unprecedented pace.
With the increasing interest in conversational and image creation AI, we can expect to see the technology will eventually progress into the next phase of the Gartner Hype cycle, known as the “Peak of inflated expectations.” As people’s expectations of what AI can do will become increasingly unrealistic, its limitations and issues may begin to surface. Consequently, this could lead to disappointment and disillusionment, causing people to begin to question about the technology’s potential and viability.
As the technology continues to evolve, it will eventually move into the “Slope of enlightenment” phase, shifting from hype to practical applications of technology. AI will become more refined and sophisticated, leads to a true understanding of the technology’s benefits and limitations, people will start to find new and innovative ways to use it in their work and daily life.
Gartner hype cycle provides a useful framework for understanding the development and adoption of emerging technologies. Even though conversational and image creation AI are still in its early stages of development and some people consider it as mere hype, it’s crucial for us to be “early adopters” so that we can learn and develop our understanding of AI before it reaches maturity.
The ever-changing role of designers
Over the years, the role of designers has undergone a significant evolution to meet the ever-changing demands for businesses and consumers. From the traditional artisans who focused on art and craftsmanship, designers have evolved to specialise in various areas such as visual and graphic design, where the focus is on creating better visual appearance and aesthetics.
In the late 19th century, the principle of “form follows function” (Sullivan, 1896) emerged, which shifted the emphasis towards creating products that were both aesthetically pleasing and practical. With the rise of human-centred design in the recent decades, designers began to place the user at the core of the design process. This approach ensures that products and services meet the needs and desires of their users, which builds better relationships between businesses and their customers.
How will AI impact the design industry?
Design thinking is a human centred approach that aims to solve complex problems and design solutions that meet the needs of the users. However, this approach can be time and resource-intensive, as it requires significant effort for designers to understand user needs, identify problems, generate ideas, and evaluate solutions.
The integration of AI technology into the design thinking process has the potential to revolutionise the way designers work. AI can assist designers to analyse market data and identify patterns in user behaviour and preferences when first understanding the problem. This allows designers to gain valuable insights into user needs and pain points, enabling them to make informed decisions about which problems to address.
In the process of idea generation, designers may face challenges in generating fresh and innovative ideas, especially when working on complex problems. AI can be a valuable tool to provide designers with relevant information and inspiration to aid in generating new ideas.
To generate ideas, AI can assist designers in creating actual designs through a process called “Generative design”. The process involves the use of AI to generate multiple design options based on a set of parameters and constraints specified by the designer. By automating the process of generative design, it can save designers time and effort, while exploring more innovative solutions that may not have been considered before.
Moreover, AI’s ability to collect real-time data on user interactions enables designers to iterate quickly and make informed design decisions. The larger the data fed into AI, the richer and better it becomes in terms of predicting the behaviours of individuals. This can also help designers test and refine their solutions more effectively and efficiently, resulting in better and seamless user experience design.
The use of AI in design thinking can help designers to streamline the creative process and make it more efficient to focus on more complex tasks and ideas. This can lead to better designs, as well as faster and more cost-effective development cycles.
The future of design
As AI and the field of design continues to evolve, it is becoming increasingly clear that being creative alone as a designer is no longer enough. With AI becoming more proficient at generating designs that are aesthetically pleasing and functional, designers must learn to adapt and evolve their skill sets to incorporate AI into their design processes.
In addition to AI that is affecting the future design industry, the rise of non-designers entering the design field can also have an impact on current designers. Rob Girling, the co-founder of Artefacts (Girling, 2017), believes that design is not limited to designers, and anyone can become a designer. Stanford medical school recognises the importance of design thinking and is training their students to use it to identify and improve experience for their patients (Stanford, 2016). This trend indicates that we can expect to see more non-designers entering the design field in the future.
Thanks to AI, The barrier of entry to becoming a designer will be lower, providing more opportunities for people to join the design field. These individuals may lack traditional design skills such as drawing or graphic design but can provide valuable advice, innovative ideas, and strategies.
As a result, designers will need to be well-rounded and have a broader understanding of multiple disciplines to remain relevant and competitive. They must not only learn how to harness the power of AI but also shift their focus from problem-solving to sense-making. Designers of the future will evolve into strategic designers who not only create solutions while also making sense of complex problems and extracting meaning from data.
The role and landscape of design are likely to change, and designers will need to adapt to the changing demands of the industry. This adaptation is similar to how visual designers are now required to do user experience design. Designers will need to acquire additional knowledge and expertise to contribute to multidisciplinary contexts and remain adaptable to changing trends. By doing so, they will be well-positioned to remain relevant and competitive in the ever-evolving landscape of design.
Staying relevant in the era of AI
The history of technological revolution has shown that new jobs will emerge as old ones are replaced. A prime example of this phenomenon is the shift from agriculture to manufacturing, where numerous jobs were lost in farming and new employment opportunities emerged in manufacturing.
While it is true that current jobs will inevitably undergo significant changes and some may even become obsolete, humans’ boundless demand for new things and creativity means we will continually find new things to do and create better jobs that were once unimaginable, which ultimately leads to a much higher quality of life and standard of living.
Moreover, as AI technology continues to advance, it’s expected that we’ll see a flood of AI-generated content in the near future. However, with this overabundance of artificial generated content, this may actually increase the value of human-generated content, as it becomes more scarce and sought-after.
AI might be able to mimic an author’s writing style to some extent, it will always lack the empathy and personal connection that comes from the author’s individual perspective and life experience. As a result, human-generated content will always carry a certain level of emotional and creative resonance that AI-generated content will never be able to replicate easily. Similar to handcrafted goods, they often have unique imperfections that give them character and personality, something that cannot be found in mass-produced goods. The human touch is especially essential in design to build empathy with users and understand their problems from their perspective.
Therefore, human-generated content will always hold a special place in our culture and society, and will continue to be highly valued and sought after, as something that can connect with people on a deep emotional level.
References
Gartner. (1995). Gartner Hype Cycle Research Methodology. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle
Girling, R. (2017, January 4). Ai and the future of design: What will the designer of 2025 look like? O’Reilly Media. Retrieved from https://www.oreilly.com/radar/ai-and-the-future-of-design-what-will-the-designer-of-2025-look-like/
IDEO. (n.d.) IDEO design thinking. Retrieved from https://designthinking.ideo.com/
Stanford Med. (2016, June 3). Design thinking as a way to improve patient experience. News Center. Retrieved from https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2016/06/design-thinking-as-a-way-to-improve-patient-experience.html
Sullivan, L. H. (1986). The tall office building artistically considered.
About
Adrian Wong is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Sydney, his teaching primarily focuses on Design Thinking and Design for Innovation, with an emphasis on integrating user experience with immersive technologies. He has been actively working across multiple industries and collaborating with start-ups, leveraging his skills and expertise to support the development of innovative products that prioritise user experience design.
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