When computers meet clutter: Redesigning my office with AI

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AI is increasingly good at performing creative tasks. Two years ago, Microsoft replaced 27 journalists at its MSN portal with an article-churning neural network.

This Person Does Not Exist produces realistic headshots for people who (spoiler alert) don’t exist.

Someone even won a statewide art prize by submitting an AI-generated design, much to the annoyance of those who hand-crafted their entries.

And now, the robots are coming for the interior designers. I’m sorry, Kelly Wearstler. Ask not for whom the AI bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

This room does not exist

I’m talking about Interior AI — a nifty web app that overhauls your living space using the combined forces of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

The product comes from levelsio — the creator (and serial entrepreneur) behind the viral This Person Does Not Exist app mentioned earlier. And it’s dead simple. 

You stand at a corner of a room and take a picture. You upload it and tell the app what kind of room it is. Interior AI covers every conceivable room type, including bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, and home offices.

Within a matter of seconds, the website returns a machine-generated overhaul of your chosen space.

When Kevin Raposo, KnowTechie’s EiC, assigned this article to me, he couldn’t have possibly imagined how messy my house is. 

I live in the UK. We have the smallest homes in Western Europe. Space is a premium on these shores, and my shoebox house is more cluttered than most.

Therefore, don’t expect a ‘before’ shot. For once, my sense of shame is stronger than my urge to be thorough.

The results of Interior AI

That said, I’ll show you the renderings that Interior AI created. They’re surprisingly decent.

It instinctively understood the dimensions of the space and could identify existing furniture, like my bookcases and cupboards. It effortlessly worked around clutter in the places where you’d expect clutter.

But it’s the unexpected elements that challenged it the most. I have a large dog hammock in my office. It’s big and black and takes up half of the room’s floor space.

Interior AI consistently mistook that as an armchair and replaced that with its own alternatives.

So, who is this for? Great question. If you’ve moved into a big, empty house and you’re looking for inspiration, this app can give it. 

It doesn’t provide specific links to the suggested pieces of furniture that might fit well in your home, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a feature like that added in the coming months.

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