Blurring the boundaries

Early research in artificial intelligence (AI) in design was “AI in the large.” Artificial intelligence promised a revolutionary approach to assisting or automating design processes, separate from other computational systems. As the field matures, “AI in the small” has the most potential. Rather than seeing large AI programs, we see the results of research in AI in design providing the glue that holds larger systems together using reasoning systems that represent or manage processes, information, and interaction devices that use conventional procedural programming; effectively blurring the boundaries between AI and non-AI. Alternatively, we see research in AI in design as playing a role in blurring the boundaries between the physical and the virtual.