First AI-generated and 3D-printed shoe makes its dubious debut(newatlas.com)
12 pointsby teleforce6 days ago7 comments
  • throwup2382 days ago
    > Syntilay CEO, Ben Weiss, is a serial entrepreneur at only 25 years of age. From podcasts to NFTs and now a shoe company, Weiss is looking to tap into the nearly $100 billion footwear market in the United States (and nearly half a trillion globally).

    I think that’s all I need to know.

    • esperent2 days ago
      To be fair you should also mention this part:

      > It also caught the attention of Joe Foster, who co-founded Reebok some 67 years ago. The 89-year-old is now helping to launch the Syntilay slide. Having grown Reebok into a US$4 billion shoe empire before leaving the company in 1991, Foster has more than enough experience.

      • throwup2382 days ago
        To be fair, his last scam involved old people investing and… so does this one.
  • o_____________o2 days ago
    > The Syntilay company used Midjourney AI to create the basic shape of the shoe, after which an artist drew a sketch based on Midjourney's creation. That image was run back through Vizcom AI to produce a 3D computer model. After that model was created, generative AI was used to apply the patterns to the model, to give it some character.

    I assumed this was going to be a functional evolutionary algorithm to make an efficient shape, it's just an image generator and an artist in the loop

  • teruakohatu2 days ago
    If there was 1. an artist prompting Midjourney (the AI) to create an image 2. the selecting the good images, and then 3. interpreted the 2D images to create 3D model that is printable, it is not "AI-generated".

    That is like saying all code is now AI-generated because human programmers are using Copilot. Or all photography is AI-generated because artists tweak the output of the camera in Adobe Lightroom using algorithms.

    • add-sub-mul-div2 days ago
      The important threshold in practice is not products made 100% by AI without human assistance.

      It's that we're about to live in a world made up of crappier products, crappier service, crappier work because low-paid, cost-saving, untrained labor will be fixing up AI output to be just good enough to sell.

      • rkuodys2 days ago
        While agreeing with that,I feel optimistic that AI will increase the number of SME which can provide superior services due to lower costs for better CX
    • batch122 days ago
      To that point, what's the difference between your list and any "Ai" generated work?
      • Vampiero2 days ago
        Predictability and accuracy, duh
  • dartos2 days ago
    Is this an ad?
    • dylan6042 days ago
      I'm sure they spent money to have the article written/published. If it were a legit article, it checks a lot of boxes for this crowd with AI and 3D printed.
    • 2 days ago
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  • karim792 days ago
    I love it. Soon we'll all be wearing similar shoes, and all have "intelligent agents" in our earphones telling us what to do. Of course, those agents will be operated by one or two companies, and we'll have to outsmart our friends and relatives by subscribing to higher subscription tiers of said companies.

    "Get better chat-up lines delivered to your ear in realtime for just USD 19.99 / month - get ahead of the competition by subscribing to $AI_COMPANY_NAME Chivalry Plus! First month is free, cancel anytime."

  • DeepYogurt2 days ago
    That looks awful
    • thatguy09002 days ago
      Looks about the same as all the other foam slides. I think they're all very ugly as well. Adidas foam runners actually gross me out
      • 2 days ago
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  • from-nibly2 days ago
    > the world's first entirely AI-designed

    > after which an artist drew a sketch

    So are we just fudging the word entirely now?