Christina Ernst is a software engineer at Google and Founder of SheBuildsRobots.org.
A Google employee recently created the “world’s first AI dress” and it has astonished many on the internet. Christina Ernst, a software engineer at the tech giant and the Founder of SheBuildsRobots.org, a platform which aims to educate girls on building robots, shared a clip of her creation which has robotic snakes attached to it to detect faces.
The piece, known as the “Medusa dress” is black with three golden-coloured snakes around her waist and one large robotic snake around her neck. Ms Ernst said in the clip, “I engineered this robotic snake dress and it’s finally done. I coded an optional mode that uses artificial intelligence to detect faces and move the snake head towards the person looking at you. So maybe this is the world’s first AI dress? Surveillance state, but make it fashion.” The engineer also displayed some of her failed prototypes and revealed how she programmed the snake to identify and detect faces. She has also previously shared various Instagram reels showing the process of creating various components of the dress.
Since being shared, the now-viral reel has amassed over 2.9 million views and 1.4 lakh likes on the social media platform. “My robotic Medusa dress is finally done!!!” reads the caption of the post.
“I’m also an Engineer and I love fashion, so I really love this project! There are many comments saying they expect something different, I wish they knew the amount of effort, time and money it takes to do this kind of projects. Well done girl!!!” said a user.
A second person wrote, “I just adore women in STEM”
“You should make a video of uou wearing the dress while someone walks past you. This way we will see the snakes moving their heads,” suggested a person.
“This is so amazing and inspiring, some people in the comments apparently forgot that it was your first attempt and nobody really did something like that before you, plus I’m sure none of them could have done anything like that. So really, well done,” added another user.
An Instagram user commented, “You’re so amazing. So smart and innovative. I think you did really well and I’m sure you’d even do better in future. I can’t wait. This is amazing.”
“This is disappointing. The snakes look disjointed. Kinda looks like a toy. Was expecting more,” said a user.
A social media user added, “This is soooo exciting and there’s so many uses for this! I think you just made a massive impact in the fashion and robotics world! I love this!”
