AI and Design

Issues of industrial productivity are of major economic significance at present not only in the US, but in all parts of the industrialized world By advancing the science of design, and by creating a broad computer-based methodology for automating the design of artifacts and of industrial processes, we can attain dramatic improvements in productivity. Recent developments in computer science, especially in AI and in related areas of advance computing, provide us with a unique opportunity to push beyond the present level of computer aided automation technology and to attain substantial advances in the understanding and mechanization of design processes. To attain these goals, we need to build on top of the present state of AI , and to accelerate research and development in areas that are especially relevant to design problems of realistic complexity. Work in design provides a unifying theme for collaborative research among subfields of AI , and also between AI and other parts of computer science especially database systems and high performance computing applied to large scale modeling and simulation. Also, it provides an effective vehicle for establishing links between AI and computational science/engineering.