Gone are the days when artificial intelligence (AI) was just a product of our imagination. Today, AI is a pervasive force that has left its mark, penetrating every sphere of society. Its influence continues to grow, changing the way we work, communicate and interact with the world around us. But as protection laws are debated and fear of the unknown continues, the battle between good and bad AI continues as we struggle to understand the implications of this powerful technology. Many believe that AI is a friend, enhancing our ability to create, providing new tools and possibilities.
While AI has the potential to enhance human creativity in many ways, its impact on technological progress has sparked heated debate and some arguments about protective regulation and fear of the unknown. Industry prognosticators such as Bill Gates warn of the need for caution in the use of AI. Recently, Elon Musk (who uses AI in his technologically advanced “chariots”) called for a moratorium on these types of AI systems due to concerns that competitive development has gotten out of hand and poses a threat to humanity. The Future of Life Institute letter, signed by technology luminaries including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, calls for a moratorium on development, warning of potential risks posed by more advanced systems in the future.
Marco Marchesi, chief technology officer at digital fashion company The Fabricant, discusses the impact AI has had and will have on clothing, digital clothing and design.
“Design is probably the most exciting area of social media. The ability to generate fashions from text prompts alone has created a new generation of designers who don’t necessarily have a fashion background but who can produce high-quality visuals and collections that resonate with the ‘traditional’ fashion crowd.”
AI is creating new foundations for design, elevating new creators and harnessing quirky, new-age imaginations. “The sheer volume of AI fashion creations released shows that fashion design has always existed in the imagination, and its democratization is changing the industry,” Marchesi said. How AI design fits into existing industrial processes is something some brands are exploring.”
AR fashion house ZERO10 will launch a new feature called Custom Shop, powered by generative AI, that “will make it easy for a wide range of users to create digital designs and wear them in AR. With the help of artificial neural networks (ANNs), the text will be automatically generated and converted into a design overlay on a selected garment template to be worn in augmented reality.”
Extatlas CEO Luca Morena told WWD that AI will become a “taste guru” for fashion: “When you empower people with technology, their tastes change. People are going to want to see the content flowing into their social media.”
“I still see this as an amazing revolution, not something that will put all creative people out of work in the next two or three years,” Ben Benichou, CEO of social shopping app Drop, told WWD.
In the future, AI will become an increasingly important part of the fashion industry, making creativity more efficient and sustainable. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect AI to bring more surprises and breakthroughs to design.