Climate change is an engineering challenge

27 March 2024

Generative Engineering reduces the time and cost of engineering individual parts or full systems by generating and testing thousands of alternatives. Teams using tools like these get a glimpse of hindsight at the start of the project. I helped their team write about generative AI and physical product design/engineering in an era of faltering supply chains and heightened climate urgency.

Generative Engineering's beast

Here are some bits from the introductory piece, Re-engineering the world:

When you sit in a meeting, travel across the country, or go to the shops, you’re part of an engineered world which now belongs to the past. Products, tools, transport, infrastructure, systems, energy, housing stock, jobs, cities, and even society — were designed for an era which has now vanished. We no longer have abundantly cheap energy or materials. Climate change swept that world away. […]

We need a faster and better way to create engineers. One that isn’t competing for talent with the existing system, but that is incremental and parallel to it. And we need to make all engineers more efficient and productive, regardless of their training. They will need vastly more powerful tools. […]

We need a faster and better way to create engineers. One that isn’t competing for talent with the existing system, but that is incremental and parallel to it. And we need to make all engineers more efficient and productive, regardless of their training. They will need vastly more powerful tools. What if the time from idea to manufacturable product becomes hours rather than years?”