To automate or not to automate

When innovation disrupts an established industry, the capacity of jobs, or crafts, within that industry changes. Traditional, often century-old tasks or skills disappear or shift into other…


Autonomy on the edge of realism

David Hockney assumes (although it’s never proven because the actual tools are lost) in his book “Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters” that in the 15th…


The Heckel diagram

In 1991 Paul Heckel, a software developer at Apple Inc., devised a set of 30 rules to guide software designers in their creativity. In short, the software designer had to learn to think like a…


Why designers hate Powerpoint

When graphic designers started to work with creative software, back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they experienced the intervention of a new kind of automation for the very first time. A simple…


Japan, nation in the shell

Japan has been used to the existence of robots and artificial intelligence in society for years. There is a long cultural legacy of humans dealing with robots, and vice versa, not only in the…


Margaret A. Boden - The 'Lovelace' questions

What is creativity? A professor of cognitive science, Margaret A. Boden, has written extensively about creativity. She is also one of the foremost thinkers in the field of Artificial Intelligence.…


Introduction to TAD, the automated designer

Researching how technological automation affects creative work is similar to exploring the reciprocal dynamics in the relationship between technology and creativity. Every manmade thing,…


The automation of creative labour

Designers need their tools, techniques, processes, devices, and applications to act on their creativity. Without these tools, they would not be able to be creative. They could have ideas and think…


The Rise of the Creative Class

Creativity’s role in economic growth is well-documented by Richard Florida (2002) in his book The Rise of the Creative Class and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday…