Design is intelligent behaviour, but what’s the formalism?

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Abstract
A methodology for studying and understanding the process of design, and ultimately for developing a computational theory of design is presented. In particular, the role of formalization in such an investigation is set out. This is done by first presenting the background to and development ofcomputational searchas a widely adopted problem solving paradigm in artificial intelligence research. It is then suggested why computational search provides an inadequate characterization of the design process and an alternative, that design is an exploration process is proposed. By developing certain ideas first put forward by Simon the authors seek to explain why this view is taken and how it forms a central part of their Artificial Intelligence in Design research programme. It is hoped to (eventually) develop a computational theory of design. The radically incomplete nature of this work necessarily prevents the authors from answering the question posed by the title of the paper but the title does provide a good focus for their efforts.

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