To celebrate its 400th edition, Stylist handed control over to robots.
Drones shot the fashion pages, applied make-up to a model, and even wrote articles for the edition.
Starring on the front page was Sophia, a humanoid robot who has recently been granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia.
Infamous for threatening to ‘destroy all humans,’ Sophia was created by Dr Hanson, a former Imagineer at Disney, who aspires to create machines that are more intelligent than humans. An ambition that sounds eerily like a Bladerunner reality.
Capable of learning through her conversations, Sophia is one of the most advanced AI of her type. But even Ben Goertzel, CEO and chief scientist at SingularityNET, acknowledges she is ‘narrow AI’ and does not possess human intelligence.
Testing the limits of a different kind of robot, Stylist gave article topics to two content-creating AI. Could they achieve the skill of a human journalist?
The first, Botnik, produced a non-sensical article that is amusing to read:
“I know how awful the past eight months of being adults in the world has been. There is so much more work than society or delight. So many arguments swirling about how to style your head. International male fashion editors are correctly being deprived of shiny cups, as it’s becoming clear that sunglasses are still taboo in the night.”
The second, Articoolo, wrote an astonishing article about feminism,
“Feminism is striving for equal society for male and female, without discrimination. By not supporting equality we are limiting opportunity for scientific, medical, cultural and technological breakthroughs. Feminism is trying to create a society where men are not afraid to be vulnerable and women can be independent; a society where being a man or a woman does not impact on how a person lives their life. If you believe in that – you are a feminist.”
Asked to comment on the result, Stylist’s executive editor said, “There’s a clear structure, strong argument, and good pace. In fact, by the end, it’s rather rousing. Bravo! Just watch the tone – it feels superior and hectoring at times, with a tendency to generalize.”
When it comes to applying make-up though, robots seem to lack awareness.
Junior writer Ava Welsing-Kitcher let a robot do her make-up. “Five minutes later, I resemble Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT.”
It seems that the world of Bladerunner may remain fiction for now. Stylist’s robot experiment is fascinating, but it is also a reminder that human-level artificial intelligence is still the future, not the present.
