You can further personalize your watch, as you did with Swatch x You. You may choose the indexes, or the color, of the movement. To save on data center power drains and rampant creativity run amuck, you’re only allowed three prompts per day on AI‑DADA, something that Swatch is spinning as a “creative challenge that makes every attempt feel special.”
The end result is a Swatch x You version that’s been plugged into OpenAI’s image-generation program, letting anyone emblazon any watch with the graphics of their choice. Was there anything that could go wrong?
I asked Roberto Amico, Swatch Group’s global head of digital & ecommerce, what guardrails have been put in place to stop people making, say, their very own Jeffrey Epstein Swatch, or White Power Swatch, or Stormy Daniels Swatch. Maybe a Swatch that has a Rolex Logo on it or similar to the Rolex Logo.
Amico assures me that Swatch, in conjunction with OpenAI, has set up guardrails. This includes logos and certain restrictions. Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek Jr. told me that he fought with OpenAI. Remove some of its existing guardrails to make AI‑DADA “more liberal, more Swatch.”
Hayek also confessed at the launch event in Switzerland that his first prompts on AI‑DADA all concerned “sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll,” But his own model said it was not allowed. Still, you can never underestimate the ingenuity of the general public to get around obvious red flags—such as a ban on the model reproducing nudity or religious iconography—and create something that Swatch might not want to be associated with. How bulletproof is this model will be revealed in time.
Familiar Faces
Swatch’s Image Model may use OpenAI. However, by default, the model uses data from over 40 years worth of Swatch watches and products. It also includes art, design, graffiti, and more. You’re looking for a certain color or pattern on an 1980s Swatch strap or dial? You can find it. The model also has a Keith Haring, Vivienne W. Westwood or Phil Collins collection. If you ask for a design inspired by something outside of what Swatch has collected together in this archive, only then, Amico tells me, does AI‑DADA go beyond the in-house dataset and mine OpenAI’s data.
Swatch
