Mercedes Benz’s chief of design says that AI could replace human designers in a decade as the company shares its thoughts on AI in the automotive industry.
Mercedes says human designers could be replaced by artificial intelligence over the next 10 years.
The automotive industry is composed of many parts and one crucial part of the web for its entire history are the designers who work to design many of the production vehicles that we have come to know today. They include icons in the muscle car wars as well as some of the most bespoke luxury cars ever produced. It can be said without designers, many automobiles would look like bland cardboard boxes going down the road.
However, Mercedes Design Chief Gordon Waegner says that the days of humans behind the design pen will be numbered with the exec predicting that AI would replace human-based designers within the next decade in a seismic shift that would upend a long-standing part of the automotive industry and potentially put humans out of work.
EVs are making design more important than ever
AI has the potential to shake up the design process but can it truly replicate the ingenuity only a human can provide?
The surge in EVs is making the task of vehicle design more important than ever with designers being tasked with making them stand out from rivals in a segment where their electrified technology and the aerodynamics they need to achieve maximum efficiency can make designing a battery-electric vehicle more difficult without making them look the same. Waegner’s remarks came during a recent event for the company’s ritzy apartment building in Miami, Florida, and paints a grim picture for the next generation of designers.
“We work with AI now,” he told ABC News. “You get 99% of crap with AI and sheer quantity. That’s the biggest problem – sorting out the good stuff from the bad. But you get 1% good stuff and we keep learning. It’s getting better every day. AI will drastically change the way we design. I think in 10 years maybe most of design will be done by AI and it will make designers obsolete. My successor will be a machine and will be much cheaper than my salary.”
The potential of AI cannot be ignored but it remains to be seen if a machine could replicate some of the spontaneous creativity that humans have used to make some modern vehicles. This ingenuity includes the most minute details with older MINI Coopers from the early 2000s having exhaust tips that were based on a beer can a designer hastily put on a clay mockup model before it was presented to BMW’s board of directors which loved the design.
More Industry Stories
- Trump Has the Auto Industry in His Sights
- Consumers Changing Preferences Impacting Auto Industry in 2024
- Driver Satisfaction with Auto Industry Improves Slightly
Physical controls will continue to be used in future vehicles
Meanwhile, the company also confirmed that physical controls including a steering wheel will continue to be used on future models.
During the same interview, Wagener said that Mercedes-Benz will continue producing cars with physical controls for the foreseeable future, noting that creating fully self-driving vehicles remains extremely expensive and is still like “science fiction.” This statement can also be seen as the company admitting that customers want familiarity and in a world where technology is rapidly becoming more ingrained into the lives of humans, the basic ability to retain maximum control over the immediate environment continues to be a driving motivation for them especially in an automobile.
Waegner was also asked if Mercedes will make a car without a steering wheel, or a gear shifter, Wagener said “Probably at one point but I don’t see it in the near future. We will always have a steering wheel… at least in the foreseeable future. With increasing autonomy, the car becomes more of a living space. The car of the future is not a smartphone on wheels, it’s going to be a ‘smart home’ on wheels.” The U.S. government would undoubtedly also be interested in seeing vehicles with physical redundant controls since existing safety regulations wouldn’t allow automakers to make vehicles without a physical steering wheel anyway.
0 Comments