RESEARCH & INNOVATION
THE AI STYLIST Can machine learning create your next look ?
BY IOANA PATRINGENARU
IF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE is to be as useful as it could be , it must learn the varied nuances of real intelligence — and few things are more nuanced , not to mention varied , than a sense of style .
To improve AI-generated recommendations , a team of computer scientists at UC San Diego and Pinterest worked together to develop an AI-powered tool that accurately matches shoes and accessories to an outfit , based on just one initial photo from the user .
Similar recommendation systems currently rely on pictures of individual articles of clothing , such as products Amazon . But these lack context , such as the season , the user ’ s body type , and , perhaps most importantly , the clothes they typically like to wear . This is all information that can be found in real-life images ( just about any selfie , for instance ). And where current recommendation systems tend to focus on similar items , they do not recommend items that are complementary .
Wang-Cheng Kang , PhD ’ 20 , who was an intern with Pinterest at the time , built “ Complete the Look ,” an AI-powered tool to solve this problem . He used data from Pinterest ’ s “ Shop the Look ” service , which finds clothing items for sale similar to those displayed in any given picture of people . Training the AI to teach it a sense of style was a bit like helping it solve a puzzle — researchers divided pictures into pieces : clothes , shoes , accessories , etc ., and then taught the AI which pieces are compatible to make a complete puzzle ; in this case , a good outfit .
When the AI was trained enough to put together looks on its own , the tool was able to identify compatible items 86.5 to 75.3 percent of the time — better than all other similar computer tools . Researchers even gave the AI an eye for interior design — it is able to identify compatible items 80 percent of the time for home décor as well .
Researchers also wanted to know how well the tool did compared to a real person with real fashion sense . They asked four fashion experts to complete the same compatibility task — and they did not do better than the tool .
“ Complete the Look ” still needs to be refined further before it ’ s ready to give the world style tips . But in one aspect at least , it met the goal researchers set out to achieve : “ The model appears to have learned a complex notion of style ,” the researchers write . But since AI can ’ t dress itself — at least for now — it ’ ll have to settle for helping us dress ourselves instead .
Learn more about AI and apparel at : tritonmag . com / aistyle
16 TRITON | WINTER 2021