“Creativity as Computation: Teaching Design in the Age of Automation.”
Published in Design and Culture, June 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2019.1609279
Abstract: Graphic design and user-experience design are augmented by computing, including tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) to infer intent and automate various activities. The efficacy of these tools conceals an ideological commitment to human creativity that is, at its core, explainable via computational processes. Design education often unintentionally supports this ideology. This paper first examines the ideology of creativity and the designerly act as computational. Second, it examines the technical research and corporate rhetoric that support this ideology and its connection to a broader set of ideas about the relations between people and computing. Finally, some possibilities for pedagogical intervention are proposed.
Published in Design and Culture, June 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17547075.2019.1609279
Abstract: Graphic design and user-experience design are augmented by computing, including tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) to infer intent and automate various activities. The efficacy of these tools conceals an ideological commitment to human creativity that is, at its core, explainable via computational processes. Design education often unintentionally supports this ideology. This paper first examines the ideology of creativity and the designerly act as computational. Second, it examines the technical research and corporate rhetoric that support this ideology and its connection to a broader set of ideas about the relations between people and computing. Finally, some possibilities for pedagogical intervention are proposed.