Thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking.
Christopher Lochhead
If designing for technology were a college course, I think one of the first lectures would have to be about thinking. And if you could only teach one thing, or leave the audience with only one lesson, I think it would be that thinking about thinking, or formulating and leveraging different mental models, is the key to success in a technology-driven world.
Mental models are cognitive frameworks that we use to understand, interpret, and predict the world around us. I believe they are not just important today, but are vital to being successful as architects and designers, especially in the age of AI. In this article I provide three basic reasons why. As we get further into designing for technology, my hope is that we will be doing less thinking about specific technologies, and more thinking about our thinking about technology, and how that will help us be better architects, designers, and innovators.
It is important to note that mental models are not biases. Mental models are representations of the way the world works, based on our past experiences, to help us analyze the world going forward. So when I talk about technology-first or digital-first thinking, it is not a bias toward digital solutions, but rather a reflection of my professional experience, particularly with how my clients view technology, business, design, and innovation.
Mental models are not new things, but I have a new appreciation for them mainly through the work of Christopher Lochhead, godfather of category design and evangelist for thinking about thinking. Category design is a marketing discipline that requires a lot of strategic thinking. It is also a mental model that is underpinned by the cognitive behavior of prospective clients and customers (i.e., language informs thinking, thinking informs action), but more importantly requires discipline to frame problems and formulate powerful insights and points of view about the future.
Formulating powerful insights about the future — such as seeing a new way of doing things, especially when that new way is very different from how things are today — necessarily requires us to craft a thesis, test that thesis, and work hard to build something new, innovative, and valuable to society. Mental models help us to be innovative in a more direct and structured way, and so this is the first reason why they are so important.
Being innovative is, I think, one of the most valuable traits of architects and designers. As such, honing this craft, especially in the context of leveraging end-user technology – today’s ground zero for innovation – is a valuable practice.
That being said, I also want to be careful in saying that while being innovative is extremely valuable, it is not everything in the architectural profession. I just know that leveraging technology to be innovative is critically important today, especially to business and institutional clients and society at large.
The second reason, and perhaps more importantly, is that mental models may actually be necessary to operate and thrive in an AI-driven world. It was when Christopher Lochhead essentially framed the importance of thinking about thinking in the age of AI when I really started to see the importance of mental models.
The basic premise here is that AI is the ultimate inflection point in human intelligence because it is the codification of (almost) all existing knowledge. In other words, the acts of acquiring, memorizing, and applying existing knowledge is becoming automated through the domain of machine intelligence, and thus less valuable through the domain of “knowledge worker,” as most of us are. This has already been happening through technologies like search (Google) and voice assistants, but the pace is now much faster with generative AI.
Therefore in an AI-driven world, according to Lochhead, the real value will be in the creation of “net new knowledge.” Or in other words, leveraging existing knowledge with technology to formulate new ideas, new insights, new solutions, and new value to society.
Consider this scenario:
Imagine if, tomorrow, there was software that allowed anyone to design a residential building, starting with a digital 3d model that could automatically calculate the number of residential units and parking spaces for any given 3d form.
Then that same software, or some other software, could create digital images and renderings of that building, suggesting different facade treatments and performance characteristics such as window-to-wall ratios based on the sun’s orientation.
Then automatically create floor plans of that building and all its details, including its building systems. Then automatically create material and product specifications, and all the contractual terms and conditions needed to construct that building. Then automatically create a cost estimate and recommend items for value engineering to meet the budget.
And then all of this was done to the same codes and standards that architects are bound to today. In this scenario, how would you define the value of architects tomorrow compared to today? Or rather, how would architects’ time be valued differently?
The purpose of this scenario is not to suggest the obsolescence of architects, but rather to imagine the automation of architectural practice, or the application of existing architectural knowledge, as we know it today. And so, perhaps the better question is, what endures for architects in an age of AI?
I think there is only one answer: our thinking. More specifically, our creating of new insights and net new knowledge to innovate and bring new value to society.
Ironically, I would propose that the true value of architects is not, and never has been, in what we produce by way of instruments of service, but rather in how we think and what we build. This will become even more evident in a world where the application of existing knowledge is going to be automated, instantaneous, and at near-zero marginal cost. In such a world, mental models are necessary to keep us from being bound to the specific ways that architecture is practiced today. We must separate what we do from how we think.
The third and final reason, which is perhaps as important, is that having mental models helps with self preservation and maintaining objectivity in the face of rapid technological change. At least this is what I have experienced.
When some new technology comes along or change happens, mental models give us the distance and objectivity to evaluate and assimilate that thing or the change itself. The alternative — holding on to the way things are today or trying to prevent change — will inevitably lead to frustration and anxiety.
Going forward, we will cover several mental models in this Substack. In future articles, I will put forward several mental models that help me think about designing for technology, such as digital-first thinking and network thinking. In fact, I think it is important to carry multiple mental models to see things from different perspectives.
In the meantime, I would encourage you to think about your own experiences, your own thinking, and your own mental models around technology. When a new, potentially disruptive technology comes along, how would you objectively evaluate it? Do you have certain biases that stand in the way? What would enable you to see through that new technology to new insights about the future?