“The era of artificial intelligence has arrived, should we embrace it or be cautious?”
“The next fifty years will be the era of AI.” – Kevin Kelly
“The next fifty years will be the era of AI.” These are the profound words of digital culture scholar Kevin Kelly, who in his book “The Next 5000 Days” predicts that AI will be equated with automation and the industrial revolution, leading a new revolution: just as humanity has changed the planet through wisdom, artificial intelligence will continue to bring new changes to the world.
As Kelly said, while we are not yet able to clearly define what “artificial intelligence” is, we have already been swept away by the tide of time, beginning to learn how to coexist with it. We are fascinated by its powerful data processing capabilities, speed of response, and ease of use. While we joyfully welcome a new wave of technological revolution, we are also concerned: does AI need to have self-awareness like humans? Does it truly exhibit “creativity” and “imagination”? Does it deprive us of job opportunities or create new possibilities for employment?
These questions have sparked deep reflections in the mind of designer Anna Yang, who states: “Currently, we cannot ignore the impact of AI technologies like ChatGPT and Midjourney on the industry. I’m thinking if AI creativity is different from human creativity. Can we distinguish the creative differences between the two? Does AI truly have the creativity we imagine?”
The ANNAKIKI Fall-Winter 2024 collection is themed “the era of artificial intelligence” and presents 50 looks in a retro-futuristic style through a digital runway format, exploring the theme of coexistence and co-creation between artificial intelligence and humanity. This season, Anna Yang used the fusion of real photography and AI technology as a creative concept, creating a virtual runway from set design to audience, and specially presenting eight virtual looks generated with the assistance of AI. The innovative capacity and broad imagination demonstrated by AI have left the designer amazed. What originally required a week or more of work can now be accomplished in an extremely short time thanks to AI technology, and the reality of the finished products is difficult to distinguish. This seems to herald a significant reduction in the technical complexity of design, allowing anyone in the future to design their own clothing line thanks to the power of technology.
However, Anna soon realized that AI is not omnipotent. For designers full of creativity and dedicated to bringing ideas to life, fashion is the ideal manifestation. Although AI can generate “fashion” through data, it often lacks coherence and feasibility in design and cannot be fully transformed into real products, especially during the sampling process. This has led Anna to recognize that AI still has limitations at this stage and cannot fully replace human creativity and aesthetic sense, nor establish emotional connections that touch the heart. Humans can not only create art but can also turn concepts into physical reality, uniquely appreciate art, and experience the transmission of information; this is a unique and irreplaceable characteristic of humanity.
Imagining living in an era where artificial intelligence and humanity coexist and thrive, Anna has created a series of futuristic warriors wearing armor, symbols of power that subvert traditions and question the conventional, bravely fighting against the excessive invasion of artificial intelligence while protecting the precious creativity and imagination of humans. This season, Anna has committed to challenging the new limits of silhouette design, using only black and white as the main colors to explore the infinite possibilities of the absolute. In addition to common materials like leather, coated denim, and composite materials, she actively introduced new technological fabrics. The first nine looks of the runway were inspired by the concept of “shell,” emphasizing that while artificial intelligence can create, it lacks emotions and soul, producing only soulless “shells.” Based on this concept, Anna used a variety of composite fabrics like fishbones and combined materials of leather and aluminum, combined with three-dimensional stitching technology, to create designs with wide silhouettes and unique visual effects.
Armor is the focal point of this season, thanks to three-dimensional design technology and details of removable armaments, allowing the wearer to easily transform between everyday life and more dramatic scenes, demonstrating great adaptability and versatility. The iconic three-dimensional wave sleeves appear throughout the collection, celebrating feminine strength. The brand’s symbol, the four-pointed star, is ubiquitous, artistically carved on the chest, revealing the hidden beauty of the body or concealed in the details, maintaining the naturalness of movement and emphasizing the brand’s unique identity.
Additionally, Anna used memory technology fabrics to design evening dresses, breaking the limits of traditional materials and showing the diversity and avant-garde of design. While questioning the creativity of AI, Anna also chose to collaborate with it creatively, transforming abstract patterns generated by AI into concrete forms, such as printing AI-designed human face images with realistic details on garments in a retro-futuristic style; or using leather and experimental cord-binding techniques to transform AI-designed tubular armor into reality, showing the unlimited potential of human creativity.
Anna Yang concludes her reflections with the following words: “We should look to the future of humanity with optimism. AI, as a technological tool, can certainly help us solve many problems, but at the same time, we should approach the new challenges that this technology may bring with caution.”
More Like This:
The Post-Future Evolution: Coevolution of Humanity and Technology
Nail Art: A Guide to Nailing Your Day-to-Day Tasks with Artificial Long Nails
