I’ve been thinking about plastic.
For thousands of years, products were hand-crafted from natural materials. Entire epochs were named after developments in material science: first stone, then bronze, then iron.
The Industrial Revolution scaled everything up; it led to more widespread production of existing materials (such as steel), and accelerated the development of new materials (such as plastics).
Scarcity during the world wars drove a lot of exploration for new materials, such as plywood, aluminium and fiberglass. Post-war modernist designers like Charles and Ray Eames began exploring how these new materials could be used to develop well-designed yet affordable products, and by the 1950s, plastic was being lauded as “The Wonder Material”: it was cheap to manufacture, didn’t rust or corrode, and could take on any form a designer could think of. People were covering their furniture in it, replacing their floors with it, even throwing out their ceramic crockery for it.
For product designers, it was like they’d been given a magic wand. Almost anything they could imagine was suddenly not just possible, it was cheap and convenient. There was an explosion of creativity in industrial design, and entirely new industries were born. Fledgling fast-food startups like McDonald’s used it for cheap, disposable packaging. Barbie was born. Tupperware became a thing.
But then time passed, as it tends to do. The plastic started to crack. It yellowed in the sun. It scratched and melted easily. It… didn’t rust or corrode. Over time The Wonder Material lost its shine, and we learned it had strengths and weaknesses like any other material.
Today, there are some applications (e.g. medical) for which plastic is absolutely the best option, but for the most part it’s the cheap, convenient option (if you ignore the environmental concerns). And that’s great: there are many important products (e.g. clothing) that would be a lot scarcer and more expensive if it weren’t for plastic. But if it’s lasting quality we want, we tend to reach for the “natural” materials… wool, wood, metal. The things that feel good in our hands, that feel authentic, that age gracefully, developing a patina over time.
So why am I thinking about plastic?
There’s a lot of talk about AI as a new technology, but I wonder should we really be thinking of it as a new material? Like plastic, it can feel like a magic wand: anything we can imagine is not just possible, it’s cheap & convenient (if you ignore the environmental concerns). But like plastic it’s brittle, artificial, and doesn’t age well, and the more we use it in a product or process, the more those properties will be evident. The higher the synthetic/organic ratio, the lower the perceived quality is going to be.
It’s clear we’re in the “covering furniture in plastic” phase of AI right now, but maybe if we treat it more like a material and less like a magic wand we can avoid some of the sins of the past.
The modernist designers explored the strengths and weaknesses of the new materials of their day, and showed how — with some thoughtfulness — they could be used for good to improve regular people’s lives in meaningful ways. As the product designers of today, it’s our turn to do the same.