It’s 9pm on a Sunday evening and I am engaged in a verbal sparring match with a non-sentient being. You see, I have decided to outsource my week’s outfit choices to ChatGPT, and despite my best efforts, it is insisting on dressing me almost exclusively in high-waisted trousers and tailored blazers. “Make it more fashion forward please,” I reply for a third time, with barely contained aggression. “Certainly!” it chirrups. “Here’s an elevated winter outfit that combines warmth with style…” What follows is an eight-point plan, which includes “chic and edgy” leather leggings, knee-high suede boots and an “oversized plaid scarf.” I start to wonder if ChatGPT is, in fact, the digitally-preserved soul of Gok Wan circa 2006.
I first heard about ChatGPT while on a weekend away with friends back in November 2022, when someone showed me a new AI tool that could, seemingly miraculously, compose in-depth responses to all manner of queries – from the philosophical to the poetic – in a matter of seconds. I duly asked it to write an article on how to style wide-leg jeans, and within 10 seconds ChatGPT had reeled off a convincing 500-word piece that would’ve taken me hours to write. I quietly excused myself and had an existential meltdown in the downstairs bathroom.
It seems I wasn’t alone. For many creatives ChatGPT has become a looming threat, spoken about in hushed tones. Will this technology ultimately replace human creativity? Will my job still exist in five years’ time? Will ChatGPT be the next guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race? AI has already been at the heart of a number of public disputes in the creative sphere, from last year’s SAG-AFTRA strikes to Sarah Silverman’s decision to sue OpenAI (ChatGPT’s parent company) for copyright infringement. Yet, as our day-to-day lives become increasingly intertwined with AI, it’s becoming harder to understand where human input ends and that of the machine begins.
“My concern with AI in the fashion world – and the broader creative world – is that it isn’t collaborative or spontaneous,” explains writer and culture critic, Charlie Squire. “A computer programe can design something interesting, something ‘new,’ but that thing lacks the conversational process of contextualisation that art has. And without that context, I think our clothes (and thus ourselves) will feel increasingly detached and unfulfilled.”
Dr Dion Terrelonge, a chartered fashion psychologist, expresses similar concerns: “To develop personal style, we need the safety and space to take risks. How can we explore our own tastes when we are constantly having what an algorithm believes we should like presented before us? Relying on technology to make creative choices for us reduces our opportunities to flex our creative muscles.”
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