appreciate your candor. Yes, I am preaching to the choir in the intro, but in the model and writeup I do go into details of the profession and imagine near-term team-member role evolution + AI.
Not sure how to insert images in the markdown scheme, so before I post the rest, I need to figure that out!
All, I am writing an long post inspired by the Anthropic Economic Index. I created a model showing how 150 Interpretive Exhibit Design tasks will evolve and adopt AI tools over the next ten years. But I am not sure if it rises to the level of LessWrong’s readership or editorial standards.
Does this seem of interest?
The use of AI in interpretive exhibit design (IXD) to accomplish many end-to-end tasks is nearing possibility and is likely a probability in 10 years.
Interpretive exhibit design, alone amongst design professions, uniquely combines experience design, physical design, graphic design, UI and media design, product design, architectural environments, and storytelling in spatial environments, geared to both general and specific audiences.
Thus, while AI is highly amenable to workflow integration in many IXD disciplines, several questions arise, common to in all fields, and will be considered. These include:
Is “taste” the last stand for humans against AI? No, there are other factors explored below.
Can adoption and capability be projected? Yes, by using known examples and extrapolating from AI job and task capability models as noted below.
How will interpretive exhibit design jobs and workflow change? My modeling projects that about 33% of interpretive design tasks will remain strongly human-driven in 10 years, largely as a result of the need to physically build and install custom fixtures, by humans.
What are the problems AI solves for interpretive designers? AI is evolving so quickly that it is tempting to say “all of them” once Artificial Super Intelligence arrives. For now, it is decreasing friction and “democratizing” creative expression at the risk of increasing “Enshitification.”
Can AI be creative? Yes, in a way, like a stimulating conversation. As usual, it’s “garbage in, garbage out.” But I’ve seen it come up with visual approaches I did not envision and I took advantage of them, but opinions are strongly divided.
We are at a moment in history when technological developments have balanced humanity on a razor’s edge. Tipping one way lies existential doom and extinction of the biosphere (P)doom)9. A nudge the other way lies “Machines of Loving Grace.”1 Assuming the latter, this report is an analysis of how a complex design endeavor will be impacted by an AI that in Andy Hall’s words26 “… give every human being on the planet access to a sort of political superintelligence, if we shape it right.”
I am hopeful at this thought because, as I have written elsewhere, IXD has largely been a myth-making endeavor. Will Superintelligent, or at least competent, well-prompted AIgentic curators and historians, be able to delineate historical truth and scientific fact? Will it be able to navigate cultural realities? Can they be aligned to do so? Will clients accept the “verdict”? Will the public?
Test Image
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humbly submitted for your thoughts!
All, with humility I ask a favor.
I wrote this article thinking it would be for LinkedIn but what a waste their if LESSWRONG readers would tear it apart for me! Can you have a look at this near-final draft? Is it something of interest to you? It is a projection inspired by Anthropic’s Economic Index with a focus on Interpretive Exhibit Design. I’ve designed Nixon’s Liebrary and with Trump’s recent announcement, it is more relevant than ever.
Your thoughts, comments, and help are appreciated in advance,
Scott
LessDong I think you mean
John,
Can you post the JSON file of the parameters you used? (I know you can but appreciate it if you would!)
TX, Scott
As a layperson, “Syncroil” is the most amazing AI generated concept to have read in this fascinating paper or anywhere.
As for the attractor states, I imagine two multi-armed pendulums swinging chaotically through their physical states. Grok might have more arms hence more chaos. The pendulum’s chaos within a prescribed space is a metaphor for the current limits of human knowledge that the models are trained on. Thus, they eventually settle into stillness, silence, or some kind of OCD behavior.
Hard not to be anthropomorphic about these results.
First time post:
Thank you for this tremendous summary of risks and their historical analogues. I also see that you’ve written about SETI/METI and I look forward to having the time to read through that post.
What model did you use to assist your effort?
There must be a term of art in the Less Wrong community for the disturbing paradox, the catch-22, or what I think of as the “crossover effect” for using AI to write about its potential for catastrophe. Are we just giving it ideas? Is a Dark Forest solution needed akin to the Wallfacers?
I felt it recently when chatting with Gemini about the potential for AI to be able to become an interpretive designer—which I am—and it seemed to be selling me a bit too hard on the probability that it could replace only 70% of my creative skill set. For a personal reference See my presentation here starting at 8:30
tx. image paste works. Thinking about how to sharpen the opening up, “boring” hurts!