There are already other better, intelligent ways of doing spacing.
For example, in sheet music Sibelius has had the "Magnetic Layout" that automatically moves things around. It has had this for more than 11 years.
Check this out:
GPT4 integration
It works like this:
You set the numbers for each sheet music element and tell it how much it should move up down or left. (A more intelligent version of this would also move diagonal!)
But these numbers are already set for you, and you only need to tweak a little.
GPT4 integration
And you can make an exception for any element and move it manually to the correct space on the page.
So what would this look like in fonts? Maybe you specify the
area between the H's, and then the
area between the AV? or maybe you could specify the
distance of the nearest points between two letters?
To be more accessible to some people, and to be faster and easier to use, font editors need to get away from their historical roots, such as kerns.
The font editors of the future will allow you to just set a minimum or average distance. (Or have a list of presets, like Sibelius!)
Then the program can interpret that as sidebearings or kerning or whatever, upon export.
And then people can share presets like "tight sans spacing", or "loose, body serif".