Artificial intelligence will kill the profession of car designers. And this will happen in just 10 years, believes the head of the Mercedes-Benz design department, Gordon Wagener. According to him, his profession is currently undergoing a global transformation against the backdrop of a trend towards unification, especially in the field of electric transport. Mercedes-Benz is already using AI technology in the development of new models, and artificial intelligence is advancing every day, “fundamentally changing the laws of design“.
Speaking to ABC News, the chief designer of Mercedes-Benz said that the artificial intelligence currently used in the automotive industry offers solutions that are not feasible 99 percent of the time, but that one percent are good ideas that can be used. And his team's job is to separate the good from the bad. Every day, technology learns and more and more practical solutions are available. “I think in ten years, most projects will be done by AI and designers will lose their jobs,” Wagener said. “My successor will probably be a machine and it will cost much less than my salary.”
Wagener, who has worked at Mercedes-Benz since 1997 and took over as head of design in 2016, also commented on one of the most criticized design elements of modern Mercedes - the Hyperscreen digital display. The 141-centimeter curved screen was first shown on the electric EQS liftback in 2021 and its development did not come cheap for the company. The chief designer admitted that despite the investment, Hyperscreen has some problems with the quality of content and graphics, but Mercedes-Benz does not plan to abandon it.
“Big screens are not a luxury, so we will create luxury beyond them, paying more attention to the quality of finishing materials“, Wagener emphasized.
The designer also mentioned the trend of abandoning conventional controls in cars with the spread of autopilot. Full autonomy, in which the driver is completely excluded from the process of driving the car, “is not in the cards for us in the foreseeable future“, he said, so autopilot will not have a significant impact on the interior of future models of the brand. At the same time, he did not rule out that someday cars will be left without a gear lever and steering wheel. “But that will not happen with Mercedes while I am in this position“, Wagener assured.