AI's Latest Job? Designing Cool T-Shirts

The T-shirts sold by Cross & Freckle, a New York–based fashion upstart, don't look revolutionary at first glance. They come in black or white, they're cut for a unisex fit, and they sell for $25. Each of them has a little design embroidered into the cotton that references staples of New York City life: pigeons, dollar pizza slices, subway rats. They were designed instead by a neural network, which crunched doodle data from millions of people and spit out the original art that makes up the embroidery. Cross & Freckle isn't the first company to use AI to generate art--people have been doing that for years.