The Future Was (And Is) Now

By the time you read this, we will have already held our fourth virtual Design & Simulation Summit, an online event focused on key cutting-edge technology trends in engineering. In addition to our usual slate of topics touching on simulation-led design, engineering workstation configuration tips, digital twins and designing for additive manufacturing, this year we held a keynote panel discussion on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in simulation.

We opted to lead the event with an AI discussion because not only have vendors in our space rapidly integrated the technology into their software, many end users in our space quickly grasped the potential for AI in a number of practical applications.

Where all of this is headed, of course, remains to be seen. We are in the very early stages of learning how and where AI can benefit designers and engineers, but at this point it looks like the best bets are in helping to automate some of the more time-consuming and repetitive parts of a given workflow to save time and reduce human error.

That could change, though. Although we were wrapping up preparations for the event, my neighbor (who works for a publishing company) handed me a copy of the book, “The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982” by Chris Nashawaty.

The premise of the book is that, while “Jaws” and “Star Wars” had set the table for what would become an endless barrage of space operas and superhero epics in our own time, it was 1982 that really codified the summer blockbuster era of cinema. This was the year of “E.T.”, “Poltergeist,” “Star Trek: Wrath of Khan,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “Mad Max: The Road Warrior” and more.

With the value of hindsight, we know that “E.T.” has become a cultural touchstone, and the other films in the book are much beloved by sci-fi fans. But which film would be a hit and which would not wasn’t clear at the time. And two films of that summer, the remake of “The Thing” and Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” were abject failures ... until time and distance turned them into classics. Another film, “Tron,” did okay, but was clearly way ahead of its time in both concept and execution.

The point being that we do not know where AI will take engineering workflows 10 years from now (or even two years from now). As you can tell, I love movies. My social media feeds are clogged with AI-generated click bait about films that garble the plots, include mismatched photos and sometimes mistake Steven Spielberg for Stephen King. AI-based engineering will hopefully be more coherent.

Speaking of interesting things to watch: If you missed the Design & Engineering Summit, you can sign up to stream all of the sessions here.