Understanding design: Artificial intelligence as an explanatory paradigm

Abstract

A substantial part of the intellectual content of what H A Simon called the 'sciences of the artificial' is contained in the activity we call design. A central aim of design theory is to construct testable, explanatory models of the design process that will serve to enhance our understanding of how artifacts are, or can be, designed. In this paper, we discuss how some of the basic concepts underlying the discipline of artificial intelligence (ai) can serve to provide an explanatory paradigm for understanding design. We present an AI-based model of the design process and describe some of the implications of this model for our understanding of design - including that aspect of it we call 'invention'. © 1994 the Indian Academy of Sciences.