In the case of the perfumes Philyra made for Boticário, the brand asked for scents that would target millennials living in Brazil. Philyra compared formulas against scents that were popular in that area and age range and came up with two. The first, according to Symrise senior perfumer David Apel, smells like “things I only can associate with exotic cuisine … fenugreek seeds, green cardamom pods, carrot seed, all wrapped with a milky, buttery, rich base note.”
— Last week, when I reported on the AI system IBM is developing for fragrance company Symrise, I missed the more detailed description of its first two fragrance efforts. It's at Vox; read more at Is AI the future of perfume? IBM is betting on it.
I’m trying very hard to reserve judgement just yet as I happen to work at this company in another country. I have read about this technology being used in ways where it did something humans couldn’t do, and it helped make working processes faster and more effective. But these attempts in the creative industry are a lot harder to get excited about.
In this case it is working with a human — Apel is a perfumer, after all, and as I read the articles it looks like he did make adjustments. If he wouldn’t have thought of some of the combinations, it’s sort of a cool idea, and presumably no more cynically market-oriented than what perfumers would usually do, right?
Oh yeah, like it was with the Met Gala dress a few years ago, it worked with the designer. My concern is whether the future involves teaching it how to do it all alone… But I have to admit my knowledge is limited about both the intentions and the technological possibilities.
I think the intentions are to create a best seller, but that’s the usual intention anyway!