The Echo Look. A Faustian pack backed up with #fashion #data mining. AKA How to really make money in the modern world.
This week something big happened in #tech. Amazon launched its Echo Look. It’s a clever photo taking, advice giving, piece of AI and technology. But…… why is it a BIG thing? Well I was asked by Radio Scotland for Kaye Adams– to dig deeper into it. And what it means…
On the surface, Echo Look uses artificial intelligence to give fashion tips and rate outfits. And it looks harmless enough. It is. It’s a clever piece of kit that has been developed to offer you advice before that all-important night out. But Radio Scotland knew there was more to the device than this. So they asked me a series of questions which ranged from the basic to the more complex.
The answers are part of this piece on: fashion business intelligence and data. Something I am now very interested in.
Q How does Echo Look work?
Amazon has been making home technology products for a while now. The Kindle, the Amazon Fire, the Echo and now the Echo Look. Much like the Echo before it, it is a voice activated smart assistant for the home. That you can ask it to play music, read news headlines, or recite your calendar schedule. Pretty neat huh? Amazon sold more than five million of the original Echo devices, which have the voice-activated Alexa assistant inside.
The idea: to act as a kind of smart mirror for the fashion conscious.
The device can also use Amazon’s Style Check feature. Already available for Prime members in the Amazon app. Which allows you to offer up two images of different outfits to Amazon’s fashion AI and get advice on which looks best. Does this advice come from a human or a computer? It will be a bit of both… But as the system learns as it reacts to you — there might be a bit more AI and machine learning.
Q Does this mean we can quantify fashion advice? Turn it into numbers?
We always had been able to. But the technology hasn’t been there too. It’s a BIG statement but remember that underneath this there are even more numbers. About what you might buy, what you have already bought and how ecommerce brands, especially fashion and creative brands, can get cleverer with those numbers.
It’s why we started i-fashionista. In essence, everything is data. Everything IS a numbers game. Especially advice. Fashion advice is, it turns out, quite scientific.
Q Is this going to be another algorithm ruling our lives?
Only if we let it.
Remember this is a passive technology — made for fashionistas. The early adopters. The fashion conscious and photo obsessed. I don’t think it’s for everyone — unlike Google.
BUT you might find that in a few years — lots of people will be getting fashion advice from their mirrors. This one just happens to be owned by one of the world’s largest retailers in fashion as well.
Q This kind of goes against the fashion industry a bit doesn’t it? (Only certain people have an eye for fashion)
Fashion advice is a learned phenomena. It’s a skill. It can be learnt. It is learnt. So like anything (data based) learnt — can be learnt by a machine. This is the same for all data and number based knowledge. But in the same way that Google might help end libraries. Amazon fashion advice might help end top down fashion gurus. Or they might work with the tech companies and bring out their own.
Imagine Echo Look sounding like — and giving advice — from Gok Wan.
Q Amazon aren’t really interested in giving fashion advice are they though?
No — it’s about money and data. Both are important to Amazon. First the money side. Well, ecommerce is huge. It was $322 billion in world wide trade in 2016. And that figure is expected to climb to $485 billion over the next five years, according to Statista.com. Amazon want to own that ecommerce trade and data in fashion.
Q Where can you see this technology going next?
The technology already allows a side-ways step into cross selling. As Amazon will use the data to sell you everything and not just clothes. It also takes pictures of your bedroom — which is interesting in itself. But if you think about this move for fashion technology and fashion data.
“It’s a small step from smart mirror to magic mirror.”
So Amazon could then bring in augmented reality as well. So you can swap clothes and virtually try on new outfits. This technology is already several years old. We did the same for The Hemp Trading Company and their T-shirts a few years back.
But my own questions about the technology are a bit deeper.
SHOULD WE GIVE AMAZON OUR MONEY?
According to Deloitte’s 2017 Global Powers of Retailing Report, the e-commerce giant is the largest e-retailer in the world. Whilst data released by eMarketer last year showed Amazon’s e-commerce revenue rose 15.8% in the last 12 months to $82.7 billion.
But the way Amazon will make even more money from this is that even though they they account for 43 per cent of US online sales they are NOT a fashion brand.
Until now. As behind the scenes Amazon is planning to launch seven fashion brands. And is planning its own line of bras and athletic clothing.
SHOULD WE GIVE AMAZON OUR DATA?
The clever thing about Echo Look is by adding a camera Amazon will be able to collect huge troves of visual data. Now this is deeper than you might at first think. As full-length photos of people taken regularly in the same location would be a particularly valuable fashion dataset. Even more so if you combine this information with everything else Amazon knows about its customers (their shopping habits, for one.)
When quizzed about this the answer an amazon rep is reported to have replied.
“Amazon may display interest-based advertising using information customers make available to us when they interact with our sites, content, or services,”
But it goes deeper than this. As with the Look, you can take photos of two separate outfits and submit them to Style Check to see which flatters your figure better. Which is more on-trend, and other suggestions on which outfit to choose for the day.
Now… An Amazon representative has reportedly told ArsTechnia (an on point tech platform) there’s also an “Inspired by Your Look” feature in the app that will “help you discover new brands.”
A basic but powerful — “You bought this — would you like to buy this?”
Or other people bought this…… Something Amazon are very good at.
BUT IS IT MORE THAN COMMERCE?
With Echo Look you have an online — always there — shopping concierge for your bedroom. Which will have people buying more fashion. No bad thing in itself… BUT…
Will it also have people taking more photos. Lots more photos. and not taking them :) Sharing those photos and taking their closets with them — to talk to people about in real life.
Is this a future of data propelled ultra narcissism — that we want for our kids? This is selfies on steroids. Not taking one — but taking 100’s all about your outfits. #OOTD? Anyone?
As those of us in social media know. #OOTD (Outfit of the Day) is one of the most used hashtags EVER. It has more than 122 million posts on Instagram alone. So the product makers know this.
And Amazon is going after the Instagram / fashionistas who document their outfits and want an easier and more efficient way to take, store, and share these kinds of style photos and videos. But should this market be encouraged to grow?
This is in essence — the Faustain pact. This is how to make money in the 22nd century. You give the people what they want. You give the people a piece of loss leading technology. The people then give you their data for you to make billions from. Even changing the way they get ready to help you.
Is this ok? I don’t know — it’s capitalism. It’s technology.
And heck at i-fashionista, we take data models and run more effective e-commerce sites. Making fashion brands more money based on data scientist. But we don’t walk into your bedroom and take a picture of you to do it.
Yet, are, we the people, willing for this to happen? For Amazon to enter our bedrooms? And what does it mean if we are? Some people think it gets even deeper which is worth thinking about for a minute as…
The idea might have bigger consequences. As academic and sociologist Zeynep Tufekci put it on Twitter:
“Machine learning algorithms can do so much with regular full length pictures of you. They can infer private things you did not disclose […] All this to sell you more clothes. We are selling out to surveillance capitalism that can quickly evolve into authoritarianism.”
But will people care? I don’t think so. That’s the pact — you get harmless shiny things that make your lives easier. You just give us your power.
Computer scientist Andrew Ng once described the power of contemporary AI as:
“the ability to automate any mental task that takes a human “less than one second of thought.”
This is what Echo Look does. In a Blink. And like the book of the same name. There is a potential problem with that blinking moment. That summing up instantly of your look and that data being owned by a global corporate.
BUT WILL IT BE A SUCCESS?
I think so… and do you know why? Even people that shouldn’t like the idea and product are already realising its genius. So I leave you with the Answer by Jonathan Brill, Former VP of Sales of an IoT company.
“I know I dress like I just woke up in someone else’s clothes. The last thing I want is a Voice of God device in my own closet telling me that. Although, now that I think about it, it would be kind of cool for them to see what I already have and make recommendations. I do have that one shirt that I like and have been stumped on where to buy other shirts like it. I guess it would be neat for them to let me know that there’s some kind of sale on stuff in my size from brands I’ve bought from before. And I was kind of thinking it would be nice to have an Echo in our bedroom, where we spend a ton of time getting ready in the morning, bath time at night for the kids, etc. It’s happening again. I hate Amazon. Take my money. Jerks.”
So perhaps you should take a look at the Echo Look. I know I will. I am also going to buy shares in Amazon from next week. But that’s another story. And like most of my blogs — it is related to data and technology and my understanding about both and society. With this new move by Amazon I feel they have cracked something. Much more than before. Much more than even the Kindle and their website. I think they may have cracked fashion buying.
Just imagine what a company like Zara would pay for that information? Just imagine their just in time manufacturing powered by it. Zara ran by a man who for 2 days was the richest man on the planet- who makes his money from fashion and has no fashion background. Perhaps Amazon will be the new Zara. With personalised 3D printed instant fashion. Brought to you by drones by Amazon Prime or Instant. Want a new top — you can have it flown to you for your night out.
It might not be a future that I want. But I can think of millions of people who might…
Happy Fridays.
