Connection between AI and product design - Potentials and critical issues in the text-to-image software-assisted design experience
Authors: Terenzi Benedetta , Menchetelli Valeria , Pagnotta Giacomo , Avallone Ludovica 
Published: January 2024

Driven by the demand for innovation, design is constantly evolving and is increasingly focused on integrating new technologies into design processes. Technological innovations have proven to be of fundamental importance, both in speeding up and improving production processes and managing and enriching the ideational process.We are now surrounded by software in which the participation of artiﬁcial intelligence is constant, but although it has become pervasive, we often do not even notice its presence. In the field of product design, several software exploiting artiﬁcial intelligence have been diﬀused to provide us with virtual products at the two-dimensional level. These software are capable of transforming the ideational stages of a project, as they generate original idea proposals in a matter of minutes. One of the most popular software is Midjourney, which is based on the key text-to-image concept, and can create images from prompts, and descriptive keywords provided by the designer. There are also interesting examples in this regard. Think of the work done by Filippo Nassetti, a British architect and designer, who came up with a series of sunglasses and eyeglasses by going through Midjourney, to obtain zoomorphic-inspired products that recall the textures of biological and mineral microstructures. The surreal collection of biomorphically shaped glasses is an example of the exploration of the creative potential of Midjourney software.Another interesting project is the one tackled by the Oio company for the Spawns spoon collection, in collaboration with Giosanpietro Jewelry. According to Simone Rebaudengo, director and co-founder together with Matteo Loglio of the Oio company, the products in the Spawns collection derive from an ongoing dialogue between different skills that has led to the collaboration between man and algorithm, resulting in an expansion of the handmade, merging the ancient world of craftsmanship with that of advanced technology, defining what they call 'craft intelligence.The paper aims to explore the relationships, potentials and limitations of integrating artificial intelligence into the design process through a design experience that tests the innovative potential of text-to-image software in product ideation and reflects on the redefinition of the designer's role in this rapidly and continuous changing scenario.The case study presented therefore experiments with a design process in which the ideation phase is supported by AI, particularly by text-to-image software, which allows textual descriptions to be translated into visual representations, generating highly detailed images and offering new creative possibilities. The work addressed outlines perspectives and critical issues, which deserve further investigation. On the one hand, one potential that is being outlined is the possibility of visualizing even complex ideas by entrusting the imaginative component to the software, having a multiplicity of alternatives and expanding the ideational range with novel solutions from which to make more informed design choices. Text-to-image software also simulates effective virtual prototyping, allowing a concept to be prefigured and visualized in a three-dimensional context before committing to physical production.On the other hand, text-to-image software has some significant limitations, for example in the poor correspondence of generated images with design intentions and the designer's need to acquire technical skills to effectively use text-to-image software, going on to delineate the possibility of a figure such as that of the prompt designer.Therefore, the presented project aims to contribute to the contemporary debate on the integration of AI into design processes with the collaboration of text-to-image software as another avenue for innovation in product design. The scenario sketched out defines an area in which the role of the designer and human creativities proves irreplaceable, leaving one to understand how more and more a process of understanding and collaboration with AI technologies is needed, and how the skills required of future designers are going to vary and expand.Nozaki, N., Konno, E., Sato, M., Sakairi, M., Shibuya, T., Kanazawa, Y., & Georgescu, S., 2017, Application of artificial intelligence technology in product design. Fujitsu Sci. Tech. J, 53(4), 43-51.F. Morace, Design più umano. Quello che l’intelligenza artificiale non potrà mai darci. Egea, 2018S. Quintarelli, Intelligenza artificiale: cos'è davvero, come funziona, che effetti avrà. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2020G. E. Valori, Intelligenza artificiale tra mito e realtà. Motore di sviluppo o pericolo imminente? Rubbettino, 2021L. Keeheon, A Systematic Review on Social Sustainability of Artificial Intelligence in Product Design. Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2668; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052668M. Mitchell, L'intelligenza artificiale: una guida per esseri umani pensanti. Einaudi, 2022