I’m sick of AI. There, I said it. Not only is this latest sci-fi phenomenon being hyped as a beacon of investment against the backdrop of inflation, strikes so commonplace I’m expecting (and quietly-not-so-quietly hoping for) a revolution, a cripplingly incompetent government and a potential World War on the horizon, but it’s being touted as the technology that will make us all more productive and efficient little worker bees as though that’s all there is to life (whether it takes our jobs or not). Don’t get me wrong, it could be a medical marvel. I’m not surprised that the application of generative AI has been swift. Who wouldn’t be swept up in the media frenzy of a technology that can write a Beatles song in the style of Lil Nas X or trick the internet with deep fakes of the pope wearing a puffer jacket? Goldman Sachs research found that AI is estimated to boost global GDP by 7% over over a ten-year period. I’m sure investors are lining up and governments are rubbing their hands together thinking about the colossal Covid debt they can make a big dent in by facilitating access to, if not directly investing in, AI (cue the recently anointed Department for Science, Innovation and Technology). It’s the 21st century Space Race.

Everyone wants their ticket aboard this rocket, just as big-budget brands jumped into the metaverse without a second thought. In terms of fashion, McKinsey is already speculating that the next Fashion Week will incorporate generative AI, and conversations are swirling around how the technology will help hyper-personalise products, solve visual merchandising problems, even help map out upcoming collections. The latest, and in my view the most detrimental, news has come from well-loved American brand Levi’s, whose classic denim jeans are a mainstay of wardrobes around the world. The brand has just announced a partnership with Lalaland.ai, which will use the AI-centric studio’s technology in the name of ‘diversity’, to create ‘a more personal and inclusive shopping experience’. I have some thoughts.

First and foremost, this seems to me a very thinly-veiled attempt at time efficiency and cost-cutting under the broad and diffuse diversity banner. They claim this makes their offering more sustainable without explaining how. Let’s break it down. Rather than scouting a diverse group of models who align with their brand (of which there are a plethora) and then paying these models for their work and their time, Levi’s has decided to let the machines take over. I’m not a model myself, but I’m sympathetic to how brutal an industry it is, particularly if you aren’t white, thin, and able-bodied. Even in 2023. I despair. But now with AI involved, what will these models look like? It’s already been documented that AI image generators are fraught with racial and gender bias, so I can only imagine what will come up with the prompt ‘diverse model’. Oh wait, I don’t have to. Levi’s have already done it themselves. The image shared in all coverage is a seemingly able-bodied, thin, ethnically ambiguous and very young woman, whose time and work they haven’t had to pay for. How incredibly diverse.

And if this technology becomes more widely adopted in fashion, then what happens to the models who aren’t being booked? The industry may meet a huge impasse. Unless you’re incredibly successful, talented and lucky and manage to abide by Linda Evangelista’s maxim of ‘We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day’, a model’s annual wage tends to sit around between £40,000 and £50,000. While it may appear more glamorous than an office job, there are numerous first-person accounts detailing just how cutthroat, exhausting and psychologically damaging modelling can be. I’m sure a vast number of us wouldn’t last one casting, let alone shoot. Modelling takes guts. That said, its value is incredible: the right model can make a brand relevant, and the right brand can make a model’s career skyrocket. The two go hand in hand. Would the recent Diet Coke campaign be half as successful without Kate Moss after her infamous comments? It seems too coincidental to me, and an absolute shame, that at a time when supermodels are at long last reflecting women we actually see around us every day and that the industry is beginning to become more inclusive of models with limited mobility, AI threatens to come and raze this progress to the ground because it’s convenient, or trendy, or both.

Finally, with AI involved, where do we draw the line? Will we see poundland just-off versions where models we know, respect and admire are reproduced with minor differences by AI (to be just about recognisable but not identical for legal reasons of IP I presume) just so that brands won’t have to pay people for their labour? Will the number of working models of all sizes, abilities and genders shrink to just the super-famous supermodel set and the growing pool of nepobabies who do it for fun because working models have been outpriced by AI generated images? And what will happen to photographers, designers, creative directors, stylists, make up artists, hair stylists, videographers, set designers, producers, transport coordinators and everyone else involved behind the scenes in the painstaking creative process required to get that one great shot the consumer sees as the end product?

At a time when celebrities are calling out pundits for ableist comments on Twitter about fashion brands incorporating models in wheelchairs into their campaigns (another Candace Owens special), it’s clear - not that it wasn’t already - that representation matters. Fashion is a booming industry which is finally embracing diversity, despite whispers of the return of the notorious 90s ‘heroin chic’ trend, and it encompasses so much more than just clothes: passion, skill, tenacity, talent, creativity, and innovation to name but a few. Given their status as a household brand which saw a revenue of $569.1m globally in 2022, Levi’s certainly has sufficient in their coffers to pay models for their work, surely?

As AI continues to trickle further into our lives, the more I think technology and its uses have their limits (for me, this limit is TikTok, but that’s another story entirely). If Levi’s and Lalaland.ai carry the gauntlet towards virtual fashion, I’m inclined to believe that maybe the sceptics were right, and AI is coming for our jobs after all - no tin hat here, just speaking as I find. But on a much more fundamental level, at the heart of fashion are two things you’ll never convince me that AI can replicate and which go around in a loop in my mind when I think about it: creativity, and human connection. And if Levi’s can’t see that, I’ll eat my 501s.