The Rise of AI in the Fashion Industry: Opportunities and Concerns
Customisable
London-based model Alexsandrah Gondora has an AI replica of herself, which can be booked by fashion designers and retailers for photo shoots, allowing her to be in two places at the same time. "She’s doing the hard work so I don’t have to!" she exclaimed.
Grey Area
Generative AI is trained on banks of images of models that are often retouched or which reflect a dominant "white, Western" aesthetic. To obtain less generic results, creative heads refine the descriptions or "prompts" they provide to the AI engines. For more "authentic" results, they also train them on "imperfect" databases, where they have added images of "regular skin, like my skin, my girlfriend’s skin, people that we know’s skin."
The Power of AI in Fashion
The fashion industry is already using AI to create visual imagery for e-commerce websites and customised advertising campaigns at a lower cost. However, critics fear AI will render many professionals, including models, make-up artists, and photographers obsolete – and could risk promoting an artificial standard of beauty.
The Rise of AI-Generated Models
Genera, a London and Lisbon-based technology company, boasts a catalogue of 500 AI-generated models, all of which it claims to own the copyrights for. The avatars can be customised by clients: "We can do any body shape, any gender, any ethnicity," assured Genera’s creative head Keiron Birch, who said the practice was "super inclusive."
Concerns and Controversies
Models also face being duplicated virtually without their knowledge. The "Fashion Workers Act", due to come into force this summer in New York, hopes to tackle this grey area by enabling models to control the use of AI to reproduce their likeness. However, its practical application could prove complicated.
Conclusion
As the fashion industry continues to evolve, the role of AI in creating visual imagery is becoming increasingly prominent. While AI-generated models like Shudu Gram, a virtual character created in 2017 and billed as the "world’s first digital supermodel," have opened up new opportunities for models from diverse backgrounds, there are concerns about the potential impact on the industry’s traditional professionals. As the technology continues to develop, it will be important to ensure that AI is used ethically and responsibly.
FAQs
- What is AI-generated fashion?
AI-generated fashion refers to the use of artificial intelligence to create visual imagery for the fashion industry, including models, photography, and advertising campaigns. - How does AI-generated fashion work?
AI-generated fashion uses generative AI to create digital models, which can be customised by clients to fit their specific needs. - Is AI-generated fashion the future of the fashion industry?
While AI-generated fashion has the potential to revolutionise the industry, it is not without its concerns and controversies. The use of AI-generated models raises questions about the impact on traditional professionals and the promotion of an artificial standard of beauty.