Ruuh, which means soul in Urdu is a human-like AI chatbot which is aimed specifically at the Indian market. It has the persona of a 21-year-old female who has a mind of her own, is crazy about Bollywood and cricket, is a feminist at heart and is capable of empathizing with her audience.

Ruuh recently learned how to paint using a deep neural network., I.e adding colours to black and white images or motifs. Then after learning that the next step was creating patterns and learning how to combine shapes and creating an artwork.

The most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes. We wanted to create something which is not only visually pleasing but also has a purpose. We just didn’t want it to be just a painting or just a pattern, having a utility of that art or design was our main goal. So, we looked at some of the native crafts of Hyderabad like Ikat, and we realised that the main problem there is lack of innovation in term of design. How can technology help craftsmen in creating new economic opportunity

An amalgamation between Humans and Artificial Intelligence is what makes this project special. Ruuh can help handloom weavers in rural communities create new economic opportunity by generating design patterns, inputting pictures and colours with the help of the neural network.

The aim is to help weavers to create more innovative designs by using Ruuh as a tool, reaching out to masses and attracting more millennials with the help of new trending patterns and colours generated by AI. By creating new designs, they’re able to grow their markets and generate new revenue, helping to preserve this ancient art form and carry on a family business that spans generations.

How this works is the user gives an inspiration image and a motif (in case of Ikat craft where a motif is needed). The colors are then derived from the inspiration image and colorful motifs are created inspired by the image user inputted. In the case of block printing and in general cases the user inputs inspiration image and from that a lot of patterns are created by the AI.