Cognitive Mimetics for Designing Intelligent Technologies

Design mimetics is an important method of creation in technology design. Here, we review design mimetics as a plausible approach to address the problem of how to design generally intelligent technology. We argue that design mimetics can be conceptually divided into three levels based on the source of imitation. Biomimetics focuses on the structural similarities between systems in nature and technical solutions for solving design problems. In robotics, the sensory-motor systems of humans and animals are a source of design solutions. At the highest level, we introduce the concept of cognitive mimetics, in which the source for imitation is human information processing. We review and discuss some historical examples of cognitive mimetics, its potential uses, methods, levels, and current applications, and how to test its success. We conclude by a practical example showing how cognitive mimetics can be a highly valuable complimentary approach for pattern matching and machine learning based design of artifcial intelligence (AI) for solving specifc human-AI interaction design problems.