Ideation as collective intelligence

The advance of generative artificial intelligence, GenAI, is enabling the development of ideas and concepts as well as refining visual outputs based on mimicking of what is already there. GenAI as an ideation tool, however, is only as good as the datasets it is trained on and therefore produce images that risk being rather repetitive or "in the style of". But GenAI models ability to mine vast open datasets on which they are trained can be problematic in that such datasets also carry creative ideas, for example, visual style and likeness which have no copyright protection. GenAI, then, poses both risks and opportunities for designers. The risk is posting creative work online without getting due credit or compensation. The opportunity lies in augmenting human imagination. Positively, however, in the bigger picture, where design is both a competitive and collaborative activity, and where creativity signifies empowerment, GenAI and human intelligence can complement each other. Moreover, when successfully combined, GenAI + human intelligence become collective intelligence, as suggested by Nesta’s Centre for Collective Intelligence Design.