AI in Design: Frontier or Gimmick?
Published 17 January 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI)-based image generation tools, which create visuals from text prompts, are beginning to disrupt design. We spotlight innovative projects demonstrating how the technology is used inventively – and how brands can avoid the software’s critics.
In December 2022, Porsche and studio Lusion (UK) debuted Driven by Dreams, a collaborative digital brand purpose presentation. Inspired by Porsche’s visionary Ferry Porsche, the short film uses generative art to visualise the intangible journey of its original 356/1 model’s conception. The creative process is illustrated with motifs such as galactic particles and flowers blooming into chassis-like structures.
Also in December, Nigerian filmmaker Malik Afegbua produced Fashion Show for Elders, an entirely AI-generated catwalk featuring a cast of immaculately dressed (digital) senior models. The project, which underlines the traditional marginalisation and denigration of older people in society, quickly went viral. The response reveals consumer appetite for greater diversity in marketing.
Creatives are also harnessing AI-powered chatbots (such as ChatGPT, launched in November by San Francisco-based OpenAI) to remix the briefing process. For example, offering design cues to ChatGPT’s natural language processing software results in ready-made AI interior design prompts, ripe for submission to platforms like Dall-E 2 or Midjourney.
This experiment demonstrates AI’s ability to reduce human input (which can result in prevalent or traditional design characteristics) and produce unthought-of, otherworldly ideas.
Despite the potential, image generation tools are often trained on datasets that include illegally acquired artists’ work, leading to issues of intellectual property theft. The recent controversy surrounding the Lensa AI photo editing app, which creates digital avatars of users, illustrates the creative and legal risks of these tools.
Brands must do due diligence when using such software to ensure real artists are not disadvantaged.
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