AI T-Shirts?

I recently decided to create my own T-Shirt store as a way to learn about the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in business.

Here’s what I learned:

  • It takes creative prompting to get great AI outputs
  • Real humans make better art
  • Generative AI can help a business scale rapidly
  • Stable Diffusion can be a powerful brainstorming tool
  • The law and ethics around AI are iffy at best

It takes some creative prompting to get the best results from AI. For example, I used ChatGPT to come up with a name for my store, called “Prints Charming,” and to write all of my product descriptions. While the AI was able to come up with some unique ideas, they were not always on par with those of real human creators.

In terms of design, I found that real humans still tend to produce better art. I used AI tools like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion to generate designs for categories like “Beatles Lyrics” and “Stained Glass Girl Bosses,” but the results were often cool but sometimes seriously odd.

However, AI did prove to be useful in helping me generate designs for more esoteric ideas, like “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” or a “gently weeping guitar.” On a darker note, I used AI to copy art I had seen elsewhere, such as a vintage travel poster of the Taj Mahal.

In terms of business, AI can certainly help a company scale rapidly. However, the law and ethics surrounding AI use in business is still somewhat murky. While the AI produced “original” art, I received takedown notices from Disney and other partners.

I have yet to make any sales from my T-Shirt store (though I also haven’t put any money into advertising), but the experience has given me a unique insight into how AI will likely shape product development and copywriting in the future.

Oh, and this was originally a Linkedin post, but ChatGPT helped me turn it into a blog post.