It is interesting and also somewhat scary for this to resurface at this moment. I have been accepted to do a PhD on the subject starting in July.
Realistically I think it will result in furniture based products with some fancy sliders for customers to specify their products. The difference is it will be customer driven and specified, not designing 1000s of options for the designer to choose from.
I used to use the term Parametric Design but realistically Computational Design is a more appropriate term for what I want to do. I would avoid Generative Design due to Autodesks taking over of the term which means something different to them.