Thursday, 6 February 2025

Originality in the age of AI

GenAI has rapidly become a starting point in the ideation process as AI systems are capable of generating novel ideas that surprise even the most creative designer. Yet the generative models used to produce texts, images, videos, or other forms of data, may result in designers producing ideas that seem to lack originality. That is, the assumption that original ideas are manifestations of human thinking. If so, GenAI might challenge or compromise a designer's creative identity leading to digital dissociation with reality. That is, digital technology makes the designer feeling somewhat detached from the traditional material world. What is then originality in the age of AI when knowledge production, which includes creative action becomes increasingly distributed, collaborative and mediated by technology? When collaboration between human and machine heralds a democratic design process where "everything is design"and "everybody is a designer".* Integrating design and AI, then, suggests a rethink of the conception of originality and its relationship to design. Indeed, what makes, or who is a designer in the age of AI? * Already back in the 1960s, designers, such as the Archigram collective were interested in how the consumer could be part of the design process, not just a recipient.

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