It’s a hot topic. There’s no doubt about it. Its arrival on the scene has disrupted the order we were used to. The scenario is evolving and it’s difficult to understand the extent of the change. Artificial Intelligence is already among us and its presence is changing our habits. And it’s happening faster and faster. In short, the role of technology is becoming increasingly central. It all began with the arrival of the first computers, then it was the turn of the Internet. Without forgetting the smartphone, the extreme synthesis of these two technologies. But the real leap in quality came with AI. The question is not how useful it is, but how to make the best use of it in all disciplines, including yacht design. Is it an opportunity or a dangerous shortcut? It was once thought that creativity, understood as human expression par excellence, based on emotions, intuition and experience, was impossible to replicate through algorithms and computational processes. However, the evolution of AI is redefining this belief, raising crucial questions: can AI and creativity coexist? Can it help to refine a designer’s creative path or does it represent a risk to artistic expression? AI, thanks to technologies such as deep learning and generative neural networks, has already demonstrated the ability to produce works of art, musical compositions and even film scripts. Algorithms such as DALL·E for image generation, ChatGPT for creative writing and AIVA for music show how machines can generate content that, at first glance, seems to be the result of human ingenuity. But is it true creativity? Or are we dealing with a reworking of existing data? Isn’t there a risk of ending up with a process of standardisation? It’s too early to say. In my opinion it represents an opportunity but, at the same time, it can be a dangerous threat. The future of the relationship between AI and creativity might not be one of competition, but of collaboration. The balance between human intuition and algorithmic calculation could give rise to a new creative paradigm, in which man and machine work together to push the boundaries of the imagination. This, together with other answers on the subject, are part of the dossier in this issue. For the occasion, we have involved some of the most prestigious names in yacht design, asking them for their opinion on the role that this tool has and will have in the future. The answers are each more interesting than the last, confirming that the topic is very much of the moment. I would like to add another to the reflections. It is part of the speech given by Flavio Manzoni, Chief Designer Office of Ferrari, last year at the University of Florence, which awarded him an honorary master’s degree in Design. ‘Design was a way of understanding reality and above all of making the beauty of the world my own… Design is applied art. On the one hand there is the aspect of imagination, on the other the somewhat more earthly aspect of application, of concreteness. For me, a project always starts from a vision, from an abstraction, not necessarily from a finished object. Then, little by little, it takes on a more precise identity when the marriage is created between form, formal beauty and function or, in the case of a Ferrari, performance’.
P.S. this editorial was written with creative intelligence.
Matteo Zaccagnino
