Autonomous Design

Autonomous Design is a framework for applying AI technology to the practice of design.

Level 0 — Traditional CAD. Design with traditional CAD tools: blocks and non-adaptive patterns. The tools are inert; the designer does everything by hand.

Level 1 — Peripheral information. The system provides peripheral information about the performance of the design, but does not complete design tasks itself. This information may come from simulations or from predictive models fed by sensor data.

Level 2 — Low-level procedural tasks. The system solves for low-level procedural tasks. This may include the smart detailing of a structural rebar configuration, or the smart tracking of user mouse movements to ease the definition of a project.

Level 3 — Non-functional geometric variation. The system solves for non-functional, structural variations in geometry: create a layout that satisfies these formal requirements within this boundary. The function is implied by the designer in their setup of the problem, but the system does not understand the function.

Level 4 — Functional designs. Functional designs are produced by the system. The user defines a set of desired functions for the space, along with goals and constraints.

Level 5 — Guaranteed performance and code compliance. The system switches effortlessly between representations and maintains compliance with requirements while respecting human overrides. Large-scale designs may be synthesized at high quality and at multiple levels of resolution.

The user builds a dependency on the design tool starting at Level 1. The capabilities the tool grants the designer become part of their thought process.