As a society we need to better define the rules around the new generation of AI. Business entities profiting from AI models, trained on the intellectual property of others, should be required to pay for the use of the art to train those models. While we build the infrastructure to enable that, it's important to not ignore the artificial intelligence elephant in the room. As artists, we should be aware of the strengths as well as the current limitations of AI tools.
With that said, I present exercises in AI designing synths [A] poorly or [B] awesomely, I'll let you decide.
Braun the synth company
To start off, we have some almost Braun inspired industrial design examples. There is a surprisingly good layout to the interfaces and shadows are fairly accurate, but I'm sure you can immediately see where things start to fall apart. The AI has similar issues with cables as it does with human hands and other extremities: there are too many of them, or they don't make any sense.
Moogs for minis
Here we have the literal adaptation of the Minimoog, Moogs for minis? Again, hands and feet don't always make sense, and these children are giving me serious Aphex Twin vibes, but this midcentury styled synth furniture needs to exist. The blue cabinet with the dead bug style open circuitry is pretty amazing.
Teenage Engineering test equipment
The random generator got a little more serious with these designs. They look like test equipment crossed with a little bit of Teenage Engineering aesthetics. These examples really nailed the layouts again; there's good balance to the sections, and a lot of the interface is snapped to a grid. Let's discuss the text. It's inspired, but it also doesn't make any sense. All of the copy is like an AI version of Lorem ipsum. It probably won't be long before there is a mashup of chatGPT writing and some of the visual AI tools. Let me know in the comments if you have seen any better examples of AI typography design.
Nintend-no, handheld synths
Lastly, we have some handheld gaming console synthesizers. Got greebles? These concepts do! Almost every side has something going on. An application of the design concept "less is more"? No way. For this AI more is always more. On one hand, I like how they start to apply a little depth of field to smaller objects in close-up shots. Then again, in this perspective and at these dimensions, angles and alignments start to look a little off.
What are your thoughts on these concept designs or the AI tools that made them? Let me know in the comments below.