Illustration 1: Revolutionary bits and the 2017 AlpaGo, in a time glitch to AI today.
Illustrative collage by the author. Image courtesy: LeeSedol vs AlphaGo©foreignpolicy.com, ZHA generated image with DALL-E 2©Zaha Hadid Architects, Refik Anadol Studio
Revolutionary shifts, as historically recorded, have resulted in an organically adjusted pragmatism over evolutionary timelines. Intelligence being quite pliable has rapidly transformed from being just human to artificial intelligence with an emphasized human-centric approach today. Having considerable impacts, all domains of practice - health, logistics, management, technology, manufacturing, and the creative industry as a whole, have adapted to the new-age paradigm of functioning at the invaluable cost of several essential attributes.
Illustration 2: Alan Turing (Right) at work and the evolutionary finches as a bridge to AI.
Illustrative collage by the author. Image courtesy: Alan Turing©pbs.org, Galapagos finches©blog.education.nationalgeographic.org and Mies in Santorini generated by Neil Leach via MidJourney©neilleach14 via Instagram.com
As a mere concept from the distant past, accelerated by the 2019 pandemic, present-day economically propelled synthetic intelligence systems are no longer only ambient but indubitably apparent, driving all aspects of the work and casual cultures. With AI predominantly altering the human-human and the human-machine interaction, design is yet to find its place in this technological cosmos to choose between the chase of digital upkeep and the delivery of advancing services. The debate is ubiquitous and elaborately ongoing, just like the advancing digital tools and intelligence.
Illustration 3: Innovations in Somaesthetics, and its interrelationship with embodiment.
Illustrative collage by the author. Image courtesy: “Chromosonic”©ejtech.studio, Generative AI©archdaily.com, AI-generated explorations by ZHA©dezeen.com and Neural Circuits by Santiago Ramón y Cajal©en.wikipedia.org
Design, an interdisciplinary process, relies on various foundational sources for its relevant sustenance. Opportunities in AI have gone beyond extending associative services not only to the designers but extensively to non-designers, posing as the initial threat. The multidimensional practice of architecture, a response to several facets of function and aesthetics, is succumbing to AI's added extraordinary ability to mimic sentience.
The celebrated capability to be creative for humans is now programmatically conventional to anthropomorphic intelligence systems, as an architectural crisis in the form of digital dehumanization and an epoch in the age of AI through intelligent design.
Merely starting as computational design, the nexus of power over intelligence between man and machine has significantly shifted, as vindicated by several general examples of the exponential growth in the said domain. While humans produce outcomes based on their conscious self, synthetic intelligence systems go leaps and bounds ahead by generating challenging results predicated on both the human conscious and unconscious self. All this, in turn, has cued the irrelevance of significant fragments that make up the design and planning process, including conceptualizations and visualizations. The act of causing an entity to emerge from non-being into being, a Poiesis, is not only moderated by humans anymore.
Illustration 4: Intelligence, a designed amalgamation.
Illustrative collage by the author. Image courtesy: ASIMO humanoid robot©computerhistory.org, Visions of New York City in an alternate future, via Midjourney©woodsbagot.com and Human Brain Illustration©labnews.co.uk
Today, with the substantial influence of augmented and virtual reality aids, synthetic intelligence seems to have outstretched its design services as a prosthetic extension. The outcome of this extended augmented intelligence has incredibly fueled the unbounded perception of design ideas. It has further helped elevate the comprehension of contradictory opinions by envisioning several possible outcomes by acting as a feasible advisor to implement the vision into reality.
The impact on an academic scale looks forward to proficiently equipping young designers to handle and collaborate with the new age of intelligence. In the near future, with an outlook into expanding the design ideation horizons beyond only the functional dimension to channel ingenious work, rely upon those who argue this digital shift is a boon.
The focus has remained fixed, unveiling the black, white, and grey area of arguments. It is evidently no longer the future but the present itself. The age of Artificial Intelligence, an unfamiliar, unopposed giant, a glass still only half full.
An Excerpt from the Abstract of an Essay titled -
Through Intelligence, All Throughout Design: Drawing parallels from its Past, Present, and Future by Lakshmi Sundaram.
Among the top 15 shortlisted entries for the CEPT Essay Prize 2023.
