I asked ChatGPT to be my stylist
Since I first watched the movie “Clueless,” I’ve dreamed about the closet of the main character, Cher Horowitz: specifically, the outfit-picking computer.
This sort of ease in getting dressed, where outfits are dictated by an algorithm, can be enticing. Dress codes shift regularly and people often fret over what to wear.
The “Clueless” closet was purely fictional back when the movie was released in 1995. Now, though, artificial intelligence has become not only capable but also increasingly commonplace. Could ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, help out?
As my colleagues at
The New York Times have reported, the type of artificial intelligence that powers ChatGPT is called a large language model, or LLM. The technology is complex, but essentially, ChatGPT has been trained to respond conversationally to users by being fed huge amounts of text data, including books, articles and conversations.
I decided to see if I could use ChatGPT-3.5, the publicly available version of the chatbot, as my own “Clueless”-style closet computer. The bot can only understand and respond to text, meaning I could ask it specific questions about what I should wear in different situations.
To start, I asked: What should I wear to my office job? The answers, at first, were vague. For an office job, women should wear “a dress, a blouse with dress pants or a skirt” and “modest and comfortable shoes,” and men should wear “a suit and tie or dress pants and a dress shirt with a jacket.”
The more specific my questions were, the more specific the chatbot’s answers were.
I asked it to plan an outfit for me, a 28-year-old woman who works at a news organization, to wear to the office.
The chatbot came up with tailored black dress pants, a white button-up blouse, a black blazer and a pair of black closed-toe pumps. That same day, I was sitting in my office wearing a band T-shirt, a long silk skirt and leather clogs.
When I asked about the outfit I actually wore to work, ChatGPT pushed back. A band T-shirt, it informed me, was not appropriate to wear to work because it “may send the wrong message about your professionalism.” Noted.
(In fairness to the bot, it also said several times that work dress codes can vary, and that if I was unsure about mine, I should check with a supervisor or HR department.)
I started asking about other types of clothing that I’ve worn in the workplace. When I described the midthigh-length dress I wore a few years ago for my job interview at the Times, the chatbot was not impressed.
When I changed my age, the chatbot suggested different types of outfits. A 21-year-old woman should wear a statement dress, like a sequined mini, to her birthday party, it said. A 29-year-old woman celebrating her birthday, however, should try a “chic jumpsuit,” and a 58-yearold woman should wear a “knee-length shift dress in a classic print, like polka dots or stripes.”
I started asking questions about situations
I’d been in where I wore something that went against the norm. Was it appropriate to wear a white dress to a wedding as part of the wedding party, something I did a few months ago?
“It’s best to avoid wearing white to a wedding as a guest or as part of the wedding party, as this color is traditionally reserved for the bride,” the chatbot said.
It suggested that if I really wanted to wear white, I should check with the bride to see if it would be OK. Which, had I asked this question before the wedding, would have been tricky — there were no brides at this particular wedding, just grooms.
When I asked if it could plan an outfit for me to wear every day — say, in the style of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos who was convicted of fraud in 2022 — the chatbot said: “It’s worth noting that Elizabeth Holmes’ personal and professional conduct is not something to be emulated, and it is important to focus on ethical business practices and personal integrity rather than just on appearance.”
Still, it gave me suggestions for what to wear: a black turtleneck, black dress pants, black ankle boots and straight hair with a center part.