It's no more news that AI since its invention has been seemlessly overthrowing different work force rendering some skills obsolete and humans with such skill jobless, machines are faster, more accurate and the productivity level depending on the job it takes is usually higher compared to human labour, my first hand physical experience of a displaced job was when I had to visit the bank for a new debit card, usually in the past, this process will have me stand in the long customer service queue, waiting my turn, making me lose time on important business I would have achieved during that time frame, because I can't force the pretty customer service rep. to be faster than her capability, she's human and is limited to a certain amount of stress level,and she would also need to take in between breaks for lunch or ease herself, while all this excuses generates a long standing queue of impatient and some angry customers getting irritated with the time wastage, the more reason why I procrastinated in getting a new debut card till I indeed has that spare time for the queue.
Entering the bank, the first surprise was the lack of any visible queue, everywhere seemed calm, I almost thought it was a holiday if not for the fact that I indeed had access to the bank, not sure of the direction to follow to get a new card, I reached out to the closest security, and he pointed to ATM look-alike machine, no, I need a new card, I repeated, he must have noticed this was my first experience with the new customer service system now operated by machines, he walked with me to one of the bots, and stayed close as he guided me to follow the instructions which were very user friendly, in a minute, there lay my debit card in my hands. It felt amazing, really, with no long queue, self-service, less time, etc. But on second thought, I wondered where the pretty customer service lady would be since her job had been replaced, if that was the only skill she was good at how would she cope if eventually all the banks and other industries adopted similar methods of replacing their customer service with AI, and not just customers services, other types of jobs well, of course it will be devastating if the humans replaced don't have other skills to survive and earn an income for themselves and family, which jobs will be left standing in the wake of AI?
I can't help but ponder about my line of job as well, the Fashion World, as a designer, from what I know, fashion has been one of the longest-standing jobs since time immemorial and the more years evolved, the more lucrative it gets, because of that touch of human emotional expression poured out into every creativity, but will AI have the power of replacing us fashion designers, or might it forge new creative frontiers? The answer, it seems, lies somewhere between threat and opportunity.
The Opportunity
In the past, every labour put into the seaigning an outfit were done mostly manually and also bery stressful and time consuming, I know of a very talented designer in my country who is in her 60's now but can't walk properly due to kneel pain caused by years of using a manual sewing machine designing and clothing her society, it is sad that after the number of years dedicated into her passion, the sacrifice had to be her legs, but today, things are different there are several machines built to relief us designers from the stress of going through such ordeal, and the more amazing part is that using these machines boost productivety, textile production for instance, pattern making etc, in this aspect involving manual labour, without any doubt, AI has taken over, which I think is for the best considering, the subsequent ailing health conditions designers face after years of hard work,ranging from leg to back pain, but the introduction of these machines still sparks fear among designers, we've seen how far and well AI has impacted fashion designing, the recent concluded AMA awards comes to mind on how AI was used to dress celebrities gorgeously on the red carpet, guess what? Some of them were not even physically present at the awards show.
Is That a Threat?...
Rather than fill our hearts with fear and give up on our passion as designers, remember that the original creative role of fashion lies in the heart of designers which is an unending pool yet to be tapped to its fullest, so no matter how advanced AI gets, there is no threat to our original creativity, AI cannot replicate the spark of our ingenuity, the ability to divine future trends, and the unique emotions we express in our designs which makes it relatable with those who make use of our designs- humans as well, an emotional being.
Human designers don't merely identify trends, we instill our work with meaning, allowing it to become a medium for self-expression, we are not solely designing for the purpose of marketing and earning, we make sure to create a delicate balance between catering to our consumer tastes and boldly defying expectations. It is this transcendent quality, this secret sauce of human creativity, that may very well keep us fashion designers against the threat of obsolescence.
Rather than fearing AI as an existential threat, I think designers would learn to embrace it as a tool to augment our creativity this means, helping us with our limitations as humans, especially when it involves manual labour and improved productivity, AI is not a threat to my career, but rather an important support, in one word, - Opportunity.
This post is inspired by the #Mayinleo monthly topics, day 21, which you can also take part in, check out the announcement postfor more details.
Thank you for reading.❤❤
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