AI is coming for our jobs — fashion models and creatives included

“Without knowing it, you’ve probably bought clothing modelled by an AI-generated image already,” says Sinead Bovell.

A Canadian model, futurist and founder of the tech education company WAYE, Bovell first sounded the alarm that AI was coming for models’ jobs back in 2020, writing in a viral Vogue article, “it’s safe to say that we will have to prepare for a changing workforce just like everyone else.”

It was when Bovell came across research papers on this topic published by German e-commerce retailer Zalando, a company she had modelled for many times, that she realized, “This is for real.” Now her predictions are coming to fruition.

AI will affect jobs across the fashion industry

AI can be used for everything from online shopping product photography to high-concept productions like fashion magazine cover shoots. “There’s technology out there to create humanlike beings in a variety of poses and expressions, and there are so many use cases for this in modelling,” said Bovell, who regularly tracks data, patents and technology trends across different industries.

Of course, any fashion set includes more than just models. AI has the potential to affect whole swaths of the industry, from photographers and agents to makeup artists, set assistants and caterers. “There’s a misconception that creative industries are immune to automation by technology, and we’re seeing more and more that it isn’t the case,” said Bovell.

The emergence of models who were not discovered at a McDonald’s (as a 13-year-old Gisele Bündchen was) but created in a computer lab is just one facet of a cross-industry rise in AI technology use in our day-to-day.

High school students are using the AI chatbot ChatGPT to write essays; Google’s new updates will compose a multi-sentence email for you from a single prompt. The uncanny cherry on top of the AI sundae: an eerily realistic deepfake image of Pope Francis wearing a supersized, fashion-forward pearly white puffer jacket fooled millions this week.

AI angst has arrived along with the advancements, fuelled by headlines like this from the Financial Times, based on research by Goldman Sachs: “Generative AI set to affect 300 million jobs across major economies.”

Levi’s AI models announcement sparks a backlash

When a human model is replaced by an AI avatar, it raises all kinds of ethical questions around representation and compensation. Thanks to the tireless work of body positivity and racial equality activists, fashion brands are facing increasing consumer demand to be more representative and diverse in their casting. Some are looking at AI as a shortcut to showing a wider range of faces, bodies and gender expression without putting in the work of actually hiring them.

On March 22, Levi’s announced a partnership with “AI-powered digital model studio” Lalaland.ai to “supplement” its human talent, saying that the move would “increase the number and diversity” of the models in its campaigns. The backlash was swift: one person tweeted: “Can’t wait til Levi’s starts using AI models so I can just never buy anything from them again”; another equated it to “digital blackface.” The brand backtracked the next day, stating, “We do not see this pilot as a means to advance diversity.”

Who benefits when an AI image represents a historically marginalized group of humans? Certainly not those groups themselves (at least not directly); more likely Silicon Valley tech elites. “It’s great that we can see diversity in the images, but who is getting paid and who is getting automated?” wondered Bovell, who warns fashion brands to “tread with caution.”

The cost-cutting opportunities are part of what’s driving the use of AI. Bovell pointed to what’s known as “unrecognizable ecomm,” where you don’t see a model’s face.

“These jobs pay less even though the time spent posing is the same,” Bovell said; brands stand to save even more by using AI models, which can now generate multiple, natural-looking poses, to sell everything from denim to lingerie. Another touted benefit is sustainability — photo shoots can be notoriously wasteful. Now you don’t need to fly in talent, ship boxes and boxes of clothes, and build temporary sets to shoot your masses of inventory.

Supermodels may work with AI studios

But what about the star power of today’s supermodels, from ’90s greats like Naomi Campbell to current It girls with millions of Instagram followers like Bella Hadid?

“As technology platforms continue to change, it will be interesting to see who we derive influence from,” muses Bovell. “Models with stories that people gravitate to will perhaps stand apart.” These in-demand high-earners may start to license their digital likenesses to AI studios in a way that benefits them, by allowing the use of their so-called digital twins to grow their revenue potential.

What’s not clear yet is how the fashion-consuming public will react to AI shoots (once they actually spot them). If the Levi’s announcement and faux-Pope Francis shots are anything to go by, we might just reject them outright, or the pressure might lead to brands being forced to disclose AI usage with watermarks.

Bovell’s message to the fashion industry: “Think critically about this. In stepping into the AI game, you’re becoming an AI company and there are ethical considerations that come with that.” The need to grapple with the moral and human implications of rapid AI innovation and adoption is echoed across industries: this week, Elon Musk and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio called for a six-month moratorium on AI development to give companies some time to establish safety and ethics standards.

How to safeguard human jobs from AI

Ignoring these developments might not be an option. Bovell likens AI to other tech innovations of the past two decades. “Ten years ago, companies didn’t have in-house social media managers or data scientists; those jobs did not exist,” she said. “Today, if your company doesn’t have them, it’s probably not going to make it.”

Her advice for those of us uneasy about our job prospects amid the rise of artificial intelligence is to engage.

“Google how AI is impacting your role, career lane or industry,” she said. “Of course, you want to be safeguarding your role from AI, but you also want to be leveraging it.” She gives the example of writers using AI for starting prompts. “If you can think of 10 times as many ideas, you can use it for your benefit.”

Ultimately, said Bovell, “the best thing we can do for the future is prepare for it.”

Liz Guber writes about style and culture for The Kit.

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