Mass imagineering, mass customization and mass production: Complementary cultures for creativity, choice and convenience

Abstract

Do-it-yourself trends, such as self-broadcasting, music self-publishing and personal manufacturing, involve combining human imagination and automated engineering. In particular, automated engineering enabled by artificial intelligence algorithms is used for pattern recognition and other highly complex tasks across physical, virtual and social media. Together, multiple do-it-yourself trends driven by human imagination combined with automated engineering bring mass imagineering. It has been claimed that this new potential for individuals to create what they imagine will bring revolutionary disruption to existing paradigms for production and consumption, which will benefit individuals greatly. Conversely, others have claimed that whatever change occurs will advance organizations within existing paradigms at the expense of individuals. In this article, it is explained that mass imagineering has limited potential to bring revolutionary disruption to mass production and mass customization. Rather, it can facilitate their enrichment for the benefit of both organizations and individuals by better enabling complementary cultures for creativity, choice and convenience.