In the near future designers may manipulate generative AI images and models with a literal hands-on approach, like with Promptac.

Creative professionals are increasingly being asked to learn how to prompt systems using text, questions, or even coding to cajole artificial intelligence to conjure concepts. Sidelining traditional tools, digital or physical, the process can sometimes feel like navigating a room you’re acquainted with, but with the lights flickering or even completely turned off. But what if you could interact with a generative AI system on a much more human level, one that reintroduces the tactile into the process" Zhaodi Feng’s Promptac combines the ?prompt” with the “tactile? in name and in practice with an intriguing interface using human sensations that don’t feel quite so…artificial. These pieces may look like unusual pieces of pastel-hued pasta, but attached to an RFID sensor, each part operates as a tactile interface component, allowing users to manipulate generated virtual objects by sampling colors or textures, applying pressure and movement.
Designed for the Royal College of Art Graduate Show in London, the exposed wires of Feng’s device may communicate a science experiment vibe. But watching the Arduino-powered concept in use, the system’s potential seems immediately applicable. Promptac illustrates how designers across a multitude of disciplines may one day be able to alter colors, textur...