AI sheep comment piece d3d

AI is set to blow the doors off gatekeeping, but your knowledge is still key

73 0

Thanks to AI, many of us may soon be abandoning tools and skills it took us years to acquire. But don’t be glum, writes Stephen Holmes. There’ll still be a need for existing knowledge and specialisms well into the future


It was not a question I was expecting to receive, surrounded by all the cutting-edge technologies on display at this year’s DEVELOP3D LIVE: “Can you count in Cumbrian?”

The challenge to speak in the bygone language of a far-flung corner of this island startled me. The Cumbrian method of counting dates back to the sixth century, long after the Romans had got sick of the British weather and shuffled off, leaving the keys to Hadrian’s Wall in the door. It’s a rhythmic, tried-and-tested system used by shepherds and farmers to count flocks: you count up to twenty, move a pebble to a different pocket to mark that tally, and then start again. Five pebbles, one hundred sheep. You get the idea.

One of our attendees – and you know who you are – seized on the opportunity to test my claim to Cumbrian heritage. At first, I stumbled to remember the sequence I learned as a child. Much like everyone else in this country, it’s not a system you might use to purchase a flat white or give directions to a London taxi driver.

But a moment later, I remembered. Cumbrian counting was still there in my subconscious, through muscle memory, maybe, or hard-baked into my DNA.

Lost knowledge

We live in an age in which to stop advancing could lead to obsolescence, like great white sharks drowning if they stop swimming. Globalised knowledge can be instantly searched, but recently, I’ve found myself thinking about all the designers and engineers who developed skills that have since been forgotten or worked on products that are now redundant.

How many of you worked on a device like a Blackberry handset or a CD player? They’re both products created sufficiently recently to have been developed in 3D CAD, but they’ve already been assigned to the museum of curios we all tend to keep in a bottom drawer somewhere.

Advertisement
Advertisement

The mammoth task undertaken by Goodwin Hartshorn and described in this issue’s cover feature, to design the most comfortable earbud available on the market today, got me thinking. It’s a fascinating tale and a testament to the extent that some designers will go to, if truly committed to their craft.

Take a step along any high street or travel anywhere on public transport, and earbuds are ubiquitous. So what is their future evolution likely to entail? It’s not a great leap of the imagination to envisage some new-fangled technology replacing earbuds as we know them. And where will that leave all the research, ideation and craft invested in today’s products?

That knowledge will, of course, continue to be of use further down the line, albeit in a less direct sense. Yet a lot of ideas and development, once no longer deemed necessary, go the way of the Blackberry.

A fresh look at progress

We see a similar situation when we look at the designer’s use of technology and the skill sets necessary to master it.

In this issue of DEVELOP3D, we touch on several visualisation projects. Once the domain of specialist CGI wizards, complete with cauldrons full of textures, tips and shortcuts, now it seems that every designer is comfortable with cranking out a rendering. With their straightforward means of importing a CAD model, friendly user interfaces and excellent results, many tools today are as easy as ‘drag and drop’.

That’s not to dismiss visualisation specialists and their combined knowledge – far from it. Visualisation experts are out there making a healthy living by being at the top of their game and producing the highest fidelity output. A top-level skillset is still, quite rightly, in demand.

This in turn brought me to consider AI and its increasing role in our industry. AI is unlocking the ease of use of a lot of products, at the cost perhaps of replacing years of hard-earned know-how.

However, there’s only so much that can be done with a text prompt. It’s tough to achieve the control necessary to build something so realistic that not only will the human eye believe the product is real, but also get the lighting and context to match perfectly.

Take comfort in the fact that all the knowledge you’ve accrued won’t be entirely wasted. Some of it is irreplaceable, some parts are transferable

In short, AI is set to blow the doors off gatekeeping – in this case, the 10,000 hours of training and practice deemed necessary to become an expert at visualisation. With such tools, someone in marketing doesn’t need to learn a new software inside out simply to have a nice picture to upload to the company Instagram account.

Just like other software enhancements, the majority of us will drop some tools and skills from a workflow and replace them with AI-enhanced software that does the legwork for us. This will give us more time to do other things, and a small pool of specialists will remain on standby, ready to tackle the toughest challenges.

So, take comfort that all the knowledge you’ve accrued won’t be entirely wasted. Some of it is irreplaceable, other parts are transferable. A lot of it will simply fade into the darkness at the back of your mind until one day you need to recall it, in response to an unexpected question.

Or, as we say when we count in Cumbrian: Yan, tyan, tethera, methera, pimp.


This article first appeared in DEVELOP3D Magazine

DEVELOP3D is a publication dedicated to product design + development, from concept to manufacture and the technologies behind it all.

To receive the physical publication or digital issue free, as well as exclusive news and offers, subscribe to DEVELOP3D Magazine here


Leave a comment