T-shirt producer Solid Gold Bomb coded a program to automatically create silkscreen slogans, market them on Amazon, and have them printed on demand — but last week the lack of oversight was brought to attention when it was discovered that the company had inadvertently generated shirts promoting violence against women. Tim Maly has put together an essay that intersperses the t-shirt company's apology letter with a modern history of algorithmically generated content. His results are closer to a poem than a true essay, and it all seems to suggest a future of dystopian industry and exciting art.
Wildly inappropriate T-shirts prompt a look at the history of randomly-generated products
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.
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