Can AI be used to generate original work rather than mere “slop”? That’s the question facing many designers who both hope to leverage AI’s power to generate and refine new ideas quickly, and worry about their ability to compete with a flood of AI-generated, yet subpar, content.
Yet Mike Peng, the CEO of design consultancy IDEO, thinks that human creativity, enhanced by AI, could be the path forward for designers.
AI’s pattern recognition capability can make it an incredibly powerful tool, noted Peng at Fortune Brainstorm Design in Macau on Dec. 2. But its reliance on averages can lead to “somewhat mediocre” results, he warned.
“Creativity is all about not being mediocre and being on the edge,” he added.
Similarly, AI is excellent at iteration, but only creativity can determine where to apply those iterated ideas. “This comes from taste, curation, discernment—you need to know where to look,” Peng advised.
