I, Me and My Ideas

Does GenAI risk designers getting tangled up in ego and computer-mediated images? For example, the designer who practises ideation as a multi-sensory experience as opposed to merely generating and representing ideas using computer software. That is, for the designer to draw on their own knowledge, experience and emotion as a way to strip their ideation performance of artifice such as GenAI. But whatever the ideation process, analogue, digital or mixed, ideation is commonly driven by the desire to seek reward, or ward (recognition) in return for the effort to be unique or enhance creative reputation. The drive for uniqueness is reflected in how designers fall in love with their own ideas. The act of falling in love with one’s own creation is derived from Greek mythology, in which Pygmalion fell in love with a statue of Aphrodite that he had sculpted. Today, the use of generative models such as ChatGPT and Midjourney suggests that designers are falling in love with the capability of the machine as much as with their own creative capability blurring the identification, and authenticity of "I, Me and Myself" and "They".

Ultra-Processed Design?

A diet of ultra-process food, UPF, when consumed in excess is generally thought of as having negative health implications, such as the increased risk of obesity, diabetes or anxiety. But while processing food is not necessarily a bad thing, what makes ultra-processed foods distinctive is that they have gone through industrial processes that have changed the nature of the original ingredients, leaving little, if any, of the original whole food behind. Could such concerns apply to the design process mediated by artificial intelligence, AI? That is, data, as the most vital ingredient in AI would, metaphorically speaking be compared to ultra-processed food. What makes AI distinctive is that it combines various algorithms to represent and process content. For example, to generate text, various processing techniques transform raw characters (e.g., letters, punctuation and words) into sentences, parts of speech, and actions which are represented as vectors. Similarly, images are transformed into various visual elements, also expressed as vectors. But is it justified to label AI data as a digital version of UPF as it may conjure up images of AI junk, AI addiction or AI obesity. Dietitians argue that it is  the overall dietary pattern that matters, not individual foods. Sufficient to say, then, it is  the mix of design tools computing included that matters, not AI per se. Yet the comparison can be informative and contribute to healthy conversations about the role of AI in design: Food for thought!