And, as in the case of Swatch x You, it is possible to further personalize the watch by selecting indexes or the color of the mechanism. To save on data center power consumption and rampant creativity, you can only display three prompts per day in AI-DADA, which Swatch describes as “a creative challenge that makes every attempt unique.”
Ultimately, what we have is a modern version of the Swatch x You that comes with image generation software provided by OpenAI, allowing the general public to decorate their watches with whatever graphics they see fit to come up with and put on them. I wonder what could go wrong here?
I asked Roberto Amico, Swatch’s global head of digital, what barriers have been put in place to stop people from producing, say, their own Jeffrey Epstein, White Power Swatch, or Stormy Daniels Swatch watches. Or maybe a Swatch with the Rolex logo or something that looks very similar to the Rolex logo.
Amico assures me that Swatch has indeed established protective barriers, especially regarding logos, for example, on top of some restrictions already imposed by OpenAI. But interestingly, Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek Jr. told me he was struggling with OpenAI to remove some of the existing guardrails to make AI-DADA “more liberal, more Swatch.”
Hayek also confessed at the launch in Switzerland that his first prompts at AI-DADA were about “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll,” but he was told his own model didn’t allow it. Still, you can’t underestimate the ingenuity of the general public in getting around obvious red flags – such as the ban on models reproducing nudity or religious iconography – and creating something that Swatch might not want to be associated with. Time will tell how bulletproof this model is.
Familiar faces
While the Swatch image model may be powered by OpenAI, by default it is based on a dataset spanning over 40 years of Swatch watches, products, designs, artwork and street art. Do you like the design or color of a particular 1980s Swatch dial or strap? It’s there. You like working with Keith Haring, Vivienne Westwood or Phil Collins – the model has it too. If you ask for a design inspired by something outside of what Swatch has collected in this archive, only then, Amico tells me, does AI‑DADA go beyond the internal dataset and mine OpenAI data.
Courtesy: Swatch