MESSY DESIGN
The robotics revolution is upon us. Reports and predictions continually express great concern that the machines will take over. While some robotic systems strive for artificial intelligence, others are geared to intelligence augmentation.
Robotic vehicles will eliminate the need for drivers. Much automobile assembly is already robotic. Much of what physicians do will be replaced by robots. A room full of lawyers has already been replaced by a text algorithm. And on and on.
The following passage is from the book Machines of Loving Grace.
“…engineering design is made up of a set of widely divergent activities. An HVAC-heating, ventilation and air conditioning-system designer might closely follow a set of rules and constraints with few exceptions. In optics, precise requirements make it possible to write a program that would design the prefect glass. Then there is messy design, product design, for example, where there are no obvious right answers and a million questions about what is required and what is optional. In this case the possible set of answers is immense and there is no easy way to capture the talent of a skilled designer in software.” 1
Messy design. What a great term. It is the messiness of what we do that separates us from the machines. It is the incredibly wide range of variables that we wrestle with that makes it difficult to replace us with software. And because what we do is principally visual, this also confirms that the visual, rather than the literal, is of the highest order. Visual manipulation is of a higher order than writing strings of dumb words.
There is not easy way to capture the talent of a skilled designer. Designers are indeed producing the greatest value. Those who design are operating at the highest human order. Our activities have the deepest humanity. Designers will be one of the last to be replaced by robots, simply as a result of our humanity.
Links to previous posts with a digital design onslaught theme:
Markoff, John. Machines of Loving Grace. Harper Collins Publishers: New York. 2015. P 286.
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