The Masters in the Machine: How AI Infiltrated Perfume
Sending you along not one but two new pieces of writing from me.
Hi friends. I have not forgotten you - I am just horrendously busy. But I wanted to pass along these two articles I’ve written recently to keep you company. Beauty reporting double-hitter!
The first is this reported piece for The Verge’s Futureproof Package, on AI and Perfumery. I love writing about AI and aesthetics - I’ve written about AI a few times for SSENSE. It was time I covered the territory around fragrance, too.
I had a ball interviewing perfumers, researchers, consultants, photographers, retailers in the fragrance space for this. As someone who has both worked at tech companies on training AI models and a fragrance historian I am uniquely qualified for this kind of reporting. I’ve read several pieces over the past year from people reporting on fragrance without experience in the space and I, quite simply, was tired of… you know what, I can’t finish that sentence diplomatically.
I went in to the reporting for this piece very curious about the disconnect between consumer knowledge around AI in art and how it is used in artistic industries. I walked away pretty sure we’re fucked as creatives and that informed consent is not a thing in the beauty industry whatsoever. If only perfumers had their own unions to protect their formulas! Maybe they’d be able to have more long-term conversations on how to define and protect their labor, like writers constantly do. (Join the National Writers Union, guys.)
The scene that ends the piece, by the way, is this scene in Jurassic Park. So evergreen.
The other piece I’ll share is this one for Beyond Noise - it’s in print and online now. It’s been up for a bit actually but I just realized you can read it online.
I was asked to discuss if there are any universally recognized smells we can agree upon.
Ok that’s all. Enjoy the reads as you have time! I’m gonna go sniff the samples from the Kismet Olfactive launch at
a few nights ago and mind my business.
Talk soon,
Arabelle
Love reading your reporting.