Metadata

Highlights

new technologies are now invented so quickly that it is no longer useful to separate them out from one another. They crowd into each other, disrupting what already exists, only for many of them to come back to regenerate and rekindle what has already been invented.

These systems are moving science from being theory-led to data-led, from deduction to induction, although this does not mean that theory is being dispensed with, only that new ideas can emerge and converge from any or both of these directions.

generative AI is uniquely suited to designing solutions which improve the human condition, in our own case the quality of life, the sustainability and the prosperity associated with cities. In a previous editorial (Batty, 2024b), I sketched out how generative AI was an early theme in the development of configurational statistics, shape grammars, design methods, pattern languages, and related optimisation models which we published in this journal. In fact, this is likely to herald a revival in ideas about design coming from this area in the next decade.