The point I was making was that having generative design software to create things like truly random shapes is exactly the sort of tool he’d need for the design process he’s talking about.
I think the shotgun/rifle dichotomy being set up is meaningless. There’s an element of randomness requisite in creativity, and generative design is great for that. It’s not like the final product is being spit out by the program and sent straight into production with zero analysis with regard to usability or aesthetic or structure or whatever else. (On the flipside, it’s not like there isn’t a randomly-generated-shapes aspect when we sit down in front of a piece of paper and draw shoes. Whatever we’ve got going on the radio gets assimilated and processed.)
Re: algorithms & aesthetics, exceptionally simple evolutionary algorithms can do amazing stuff. If you think that we couldn’t generate aesthetics with user input, you’ve clearly never used Pandora. 
-Josh