With apologies to The Who for the title of this blog post, Generative Design is a process where a human gives the computer a set of parameters that expresses his overall goals, and the system uses algorithms to explore all of the best possible permutations of a solution through successive generations, until the best one is found. Autodesk is working to change the computer from being a high-powered documentation tool to an intelligent partner in the creation of designs.

In terms of Generative Design, we have some new web pages that recently went live:

Visit the pages.

But wait. That's not all. Generative Design can be applied to biology:

Read the TechCrunch article.

This blog post was written by a human but spell and grammar checked by a computer. One day the computer may also help me compose. There are examples of this already, e.g., "Did a Human or a Computer Write This?" Computers can already generate new works of art in the tradition of the old masters, e.g., "Deep Forger." If artificial intelligence can be applied to writing and painting, it can also be applied to design. Designers will be in control of the requirements. The computer will do the heavy lifting.

Generative design is alive in the lab.