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This is pretty cool, though I wonder if the use of AI in this particular way is extraordinarily novel. Computer aided design using physics and optimization has existed and been designing parts for decades now. This is just more of the same.
It seems incorrect to call generative design AI. Isn't it just an implementation of a genetic algorithm? It would be more apt to compare it to natural selection and evolution.
Correct, these components were evolved. But, even my human creative process is somewhat evolutionary. The bad ideas fail internal tests and are mutated on, then more successful variants are used to repeat the process. That's intelligence, so an evolutionary algorithm in my opinion is a form of artificial intelligence.
That would then imply natural selection itself is a form of intelligence.
Generative design has existed for a long time and many cad packages have it nowadays.

Nowadays you get more attention if you call it AI.

There's been this long term trend to let machines to take over a bigger and bigger part of designing things.

Are the parts 3D printed, or what is the fabrication process?

> McClelland admits that the parts “look somewhat alien and weird, but once you see them in function, it really makes sense.”

I wish this aspect has been shown in TFA.

I am reminded of the instruments in Dead Ringers.