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Swatch’s AI-DADA Puts AI Slop On Your Wrist

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Three Swatches, a Casio, and an Evora watch

My first Swatch, custom ones that were made for me, and the watches I’ve been wearing because I can’t look at a Swatch right now.

Language warning: I don’t have an editor and this is my own blog

God. Fucking. Damn. Everything.

You were warned and it’s not going to get much better

It was a few years ago that I decided to forgo the smartwatch. I replaced it with fun and colorful watches from Swatch. I got a ton of them. It became my ADHD fixation for a while. I just couldn’t help myself. New design? Click buy! I got so many that girlfriends have called my bedroom a “watch museum.” Make no mistake, I didn’t target expensive watches. I have plenty from Casio and Timex as well. Cheap watches are the best! I love picking out a watch for my outfit, mood, occasion, it’s great having so many cool options. But no company got more of my business than Swatch.

And now those fuckers are working with OpenAI to make AI slop watches.

Swatch was a company that focused on the creation of art. Their watches are unique, made by real people, and often inspired by the works of real artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and countless others. Now they use AI that artists say steals from them without compensation and relies on “modern day slavery” that an AI moderator said “destroyed me completely,” pollution, extreme levels of water usage, and electricity usage so bad it’s driving up electricity prices and pushing us back to coal.

This software is, but nearly any moral measure, fucking evil. And Swatch wants you to slap it on your wrist. It was bad enough they were using AI in marketing. This? This is a far greater insult of creativity, art, and even Swiss watchmaking.

I’m reminded of something Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli said upon seeing a grotesque animation made with AI: “I am utterly disgusted… I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.” Studio Ghibli has since demanded OpenAI stop using their work to train their models. OpenAI has posed itself against artists, and Swatch sided with them.

This is why business majors and silver spoon-fed nepo babies should be forced to take more art classes and work at the level of their employees before they can lead a company. No one should be in the C-Suite of any company unless they spent a few years in entry-level positions. Otherwise, they may devalue the hard work other people put into a product to churn out trash like AI products.

Swatch AI-DADA or Swatch x Theft?

A Swatch x You watch with a custom engraving saying "Love U! Mom&Dad"

Back when you could actually design your own watch and put meaningful messages on them, I got this one from my parents as a gift

Swatch’s new AI customization tool, which they’re calling “AI-DADA” is available now in Switzerland and rolling out online worldwide currently. The watches they generate are sold for CHF170 or about $211 US. That’s about twice the cost of any of these watches normally. Eventually, it may even be available in kiosks in Swatch stores, the way Swatch x You watches are now.

Swatch x You was a project where customers could take designs that Swatch made and change their position on a watch, resize them, move them around, pick out the movement style, and make a watch that’s truly 1 of 1, with a human touch. They have art, stellar photos from the European Space Agency, and plenty of designs to customize and make your own. My parents got me two such watches, and I cherish them because I know my family put the effort into designing them. Now they could just type “punk graffiti” and roll with a design I might like, but would never have the same attachment to. There’s no effort, there’s no human curation. This crap? It’s just slop. Why wear something if it wasn’t made by a human mind, heart, or hands? Why give a gift you didn’t put your heart into, built by machines and stolen labor?

Screenshot of a Wired article, linked here. Reads, "The Low-Paid Humans Behind Al's Smarts Ask Biden to Free Them From 'Modern Day Slavery'African workers who label Al data and screen social posts for US tech giants are calling on President Biden to raise their plight with Kenya's president, William Ruto, who visits the US this"

Screenshot lightly edited for readability via Wired

AI-DADA is reportedly the output of a Swatch and OpenAI collaboration. OpenAI is being sued by multiple creative outlets because the project swallowed up large amounts of writing, art, music, and other artistic output without consent to sell off for profit. The company does what many creative types and anyone who respects art consider theft, and repackages it for sale. Swatch didn’t even go out of their way to pick an AI company that’s at least trying to make slightly better AI by respecting copyright. Of course, all AI generation takes away the human element, devalues real art, and creates pollution and relies on human monitoring that has been compared to slave labor. It’s all bad, but Swatch didn’t even try to minimize their negative impact here.

Swatch Loyalists Push Back

Screenshots from an Instagram reel showing obvious AI images on Swatch's page

Previous Swatch slop. Screenshots via Swatch’s reel on Instagram, written about here.

On the Reddit r/swatch thread announcing the effort, the top comments expressed disgust. I was especially fond of u/sacreddebris’ comment, “A company that had Keith Harring [sic], Kenny Scharf, Akira Kurosawa, Robert Altman etc designing watches using AI slop breaks my heart.” That’s exactly how I felt when I saw Swatch first using AI for marketing and now the generation of actual watch designs.

Swatch watches were born of creativity, a push back against the businessmen and “better-than-you” nature of watches for most of time. They were a direct answer to the Swiss watch market that had become unobtainable and uninspiring for most people. Swatch was alternative, punk, even. Their “X-rated” watch, specifically, became a uniform in the straight edge punk scene. Now Swatch joined status quo, the businesses eschewing human creativity for a fast buck with the AI bubble. The pirates joined the navy and they’re polluting the waters.

I haven’t worn a Swatch since I heard the news. It’s just toxic to me now. I’ve worn a Timex, a Casio, and today an Evora watch. At least they’re not destroying the planet and devaluing real art with an AI slop gimmick.

Fuck Swatch.

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