[iancmceachern]

This is happening now for mechanical design. They call it generative design. You give inputs (volume/shape, loading cases, other parameters) and then the software iteratively solves for the optimum geometry to meet the goals.

[tobmlt]

And there is also ``form parameter design'' for ship hull geometry. It is also generative, but perhaps it more typically makes use of deterministic (nonlinear optimization) solvers to generate the geometry itself. (Implementations vary - I show my bias (or just inability to shut up) here as I am trying to finish a PhD in this as we speak) The main similarity I'm going for in this comment is that the user specifies design constraints and the program generates ship hull shapes that meet those requirements.

Tie generative methods in with solvers for hydrodynamics, motions, structures, stability, etc, and one can conceive of automating the ship hull design spiral, or sections of it anyway. That's not to say that some of this is not already out there in commercial software.

[jbattle]

Example: antennas have been evolved to meet specific special criteria ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_antenna