Everyone can design, vision determines innovation! The design week theme forum discussed 'Design Thinking in the Artificial Intelligence Era'

On September 21, with the opening of the 2023 Beijing International Design Week, the "Design Thinking in the Artificial Intelligence Era" themed forum was also held at the permanent venue of the Beijing International Design Week in Zhangjiawan Design Town, Tongzhou District. More than 20 experts in the fields of design and education from all over the world collided with ideas on topics such as design thinking and talent training in the era of artificial intelligence.

What needs to be rewritten is: the original design talent training model needs to be broken

"In the era of artificial intelligence, are teachers of our age (50 or 60 years old) still qualified to teach design students?" During the roundtable forum, more than one senior professor of design majors in universities asked this question .

Wang Zhong, Dean of the Institute of Urban Design and Innovation of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, reminded the industry insiders present to think about whether our understanding of the artificial intelligence era is deep enough. "The core of the artificial intelligence era is exponential development." Wang Zhong gave an example of the concept of exponential superposition. If you take a piece of A4 paper and fold it repeatedly, by the 43rd time, the thickness of the paper will exceed the distance from the earth to the moon. With the emergence of quantum computing, exponential superposition becomes even more powerful. "According to the 'New Moore's Law', the total amount of data in human history doubles every 18 months. If we don't have a deep understanding of this and just use artificial intelligence as an auxiliary tool for design and thinking, , then we underestimate this era." He said.

A set of tables drawn by Wang Zhong shows that the traditional training model for designers is a closed loop of creativity-technology-works-products. Future designers will need to understand artificial intelligence, big data, user experience, blockchain, IP, development design, new technology platform applications, and humanistic aesthetics. "Today we are talking about how to cultivate talents from the perspective of schools. You must know that the current training of design talents and design thinking training requires first of all to break the original disciplines and barriers. Those are talent training models that have been inherited from the era of industrial civilization. , is not suitable for the current era." Wang Zhong said.

Design will no longer be a "patent" for professionals

"Insight and empathy are crucial." He Renke, chairman of the academic committee of the School of Design and Art of Hunan University, said that especially in the era of artificial intelligence, this is the advantage of human designers. However, this kind of insight and empathy will not be the "patent" of design students and design professionals. In the era of artificial intelligence, the threshold for design is lowering. Because new technology platforms have filled the previous technology gap. Whoever has a broader vision and can effectively issue instructions to guide design tools will become an excellent designer.

"In the future, everyone can design, and everyone can be a designer." Based on this consensus, Chen Hanqing, Honorary Dean of the School of Art and Design at Wuhan University of Technology, predicted, "There will be fewer design students in the future, but design thinking will be the elective There will be more students from various majors in this course." It is very likely that in the future, students majoring in mechanics, physics, computer science, etc. will take two courses, one design thinking and one design expression, so that they can graft and cross over what they have learned. "He said that this kind of cross-learning itself is a turning point in the education model.

At the scene, Beijing International Design Week and Communication University of China jointly released the "2023 Design Thinking Research Report". The report shows that more and more schools, government organizations, enterprises, and business consulting organizations in China have realized the importance of cultivating design thinking. "In addition to the construction of professional courses, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Southwest Jiaotong University, Communication University, Shanghai University of Science and Technology, etc. have all launched general education courses with 'design thinking' as the core." said Shi Linlin, dean of the School of Design Thinking at Communication University of China, Even Tongji University and Beijing Normal University have implemented design thinking teaching in middle schools and primary schools respectively, showing the urgency of starting design from childhood.

Creative design is brought by cross-disciplinary talents

At the small exhibition held at the opening ceremony of Design Week - "Digital Art Fashion and Clothing Exhibition Based on AIGC-Assisted Design", we can already see the creativity of cross-disciplinary talents and the market results achieved

Beijing Sklett Technology Co., Ltd. showcased their latest toddler shoes. The design of this shoe is designed, optimized and produced by artificial intelligence through human instructions. The core members of the company's team come from sculpture, industrial design, mechanics and bionic majors. Xu Fanglai, one of the founders, said that during the design process, the team continuously refined human instructions and trained the design capabilities of artificial intelligence to realize human design wishes. For example, toddler shoes need to meet requirements such as softness, the first third of which can be bent, breathability, good wrapping, and cotton fabrics with no ends. Xu Fanglai said: "Look at the lattice structure of the sole, it is consistent with the architectural language style of the famous architect Zaha Hadid. It also uses a parametric bionic structure, but what we are doing is not a grand building. It’s a small daily necessities. This is the result of cross-disciplinary application of knowledge.” This product won global design awards as soon as it was launched, and was featured on major global e-commerce platforms

"Compared with artificial intelligence, humans are better at creation and innovation from 0 to 1. To cultivate people's innovation and creativity capabilities, the practice of integrating industry and research is effective." At the main forum of Design Week, Jiang Li, director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Future Education at Stanford University, shared Stanford's practical experience of more than half a century, hoping to provide reference for domestic peers.

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