This Is What It Looks Like When Artificial Intelligence Designs a Dress for the Met Gala

If you were picturing a not-so-distant future populated by ever-helpful artificial intelligence eager to kowtow to your every whim in a split second--well, think again. "I need another day," said the AI developed within algorithm editor Grasshopper to create a dress for the New York socialite Lisa Maria Falcone to wear to tonight's Met Gala. Designer Zaldy Goco, Robert de Saint Phalle of Conduit Projects (an interdisciplinary design and consulting studio), and computational designers Nicholas Jacobson and Jared Friedman all looked on in dismay. But much like the other minds behind the red carpet confections on display tonight, AI does not like to be pushed. To use logic, computation, generative algorithms, and mathematical optimization--or, simply, its artificially intelligent brain--to solve for the meticulous coding and arrangement of thousands of mirrors in 24 sizes and four colorways atop a flat grid of patterned pieces.