A s I gaze at the computer screen, a yacht like nothing I've ever seen on the water emerges before me. The fairly typical hull is married to a curvaceous glass superstructure adorned with gilded patterns and resembling an Egyptian pyramid. It appears within seconds of typing in a few keywords as if conjured from a coded mist. And, indeed, it was.
Rob Armstrong, creative director of ThirtyC Yacht Design, is guiding me through the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and showing me a few of the AI applications that his studio is currently using. Armstrong is one of many yacht designers and naval architects who have been exploring AI as a tool in the design process while others have warned it could ring the death knell for creativity.
The yachting industry's varied opinions on AI mirror the debate raging in the wider society. Some are keen to dive in and see how it might be useful - and profitable - to humans. And some fear its very existence, predicting future iterations will spell an end to humankind as we know it.
Designers like Armstrong are experimenting with generative AI, which refers to algorithms that can create images or text from information already available online. The much-discussed ChatGPT is one example. Artificial general intelligence (AGI), on the other hand, is the stuff of sci-fi: an advanced AI that
