Does the rise of AI fashion models mean a new world order is coming for creative industries?

12:52Canadian model Sinead Bovell on how she knew AI would one day replace her

Three years ago, Sinead Bovell wrote an article for Vogue magazine with an explosive headline: "I Am a Model and I Know That Artificial Intelligence Will Eventually Take My Job."

Back then, the Canadian model and futurist was writing about the rise of digital supermodels like Shudu Gram — a South African character created by CGI, whose modelling career highlights include a Balmain campaign and Vogue Magazine feature.

But Bovell, founder of the tech education company WAYE Talks, predicted Shudu Gram was just the beginning. 

"I started to track a type of AI called generative AI. The more I looked into it, the clearer it became that this technology is quite good at creating images of people," Bovell told CBC Radio host Elamin Abdelmahmoud on Commotion. 

"If I can create something that looks incredibly realistic, what other industries could that have implications for? Modeling was kind of top of the list."

Enter the Dutch startup Deep Agency, which describes itself as an "AI photo studio and modelling agency." For $29 USD per month, users can hire models generated by AI, place them in poses and contexts of their choosing and use the photos however they choose. Users can also create "digital twins" of themselves to create photos of moments that never happened. 

Deep Agency launched at the beginning of March and is still in beta mode. Both PCMag and Vice have noticed limitations in their test runs of it. But before it gets too good, Bovell wants the fashion industry thinking about the ethics of this technology — and how to protect models.

"Fashion has gone through an inclusivity reckoning over these last couple of years," said Bovell. 

"A lot of models have put their entire careers on the line to advocate for a more inclusive world. Are those gains just going to go to a coder somewhere in Silicon Valley? We need to make sure that doesn't happen."

The issue came up back in 2018 when the internet realized Shudu Gram was created (through CGI, not AI) by a white British fashion photographer named Cameron-James Wilson. He told Harper's Bazaar she was his "art piece" and added, "There's a big kind of movement with dark skin models, so she represents them and is inspired by them."

The backlash was swift. The New Yorker compared it to blackface minstrelsy; others criticized Wilson for taking jobs away from real Black models. He eventually hired Ama Badu, a Ghanaian British writer, to be Shudu's voice in interviews.

Wilson reflected on the controversy a year later to Elle Magazine, saying, "I think all good art inspires debate and I'm glad that it got people talking about fair payment for Black women in the modelling industry and how many opportunities there are for Black women."

Bovell said, "In a world where we can generate and control identities, some of which may not be in any way similar to our own, it raises the question of who gets to profit and control the identities of experiences they may have not had to go through."

But Bovell isn't a cynic when it comes to AI — she believes an ethical way forward is possible. And besides, she sees it as an inevitability.

There are a growing number of examples to back her up: Vogue Singapore welcomed AI models on its cover this month. The viral success of the horror film M3GAN suggests there's a fandom for even murderous AI characters. Bovell said the technology could also make fashion more environmentally sustainable.

"Photoshoots aren't often the most sustainable. Oftentimes, the clothes go to landfills, or aren't reused," she said. 

"So this is an area where it would make things a lot more efficient, a lot cleaner."

But as Bovell puts it, "technology highlights and amplifies cracks" and the fashion industry has enough for its models to fall through.

"Many people don't realize that models don't own their own images," said Bovell.

"So if you head to a photo shoot, all of the work you create, you have no control over what happens to that. You have no ownership over those rights. And so, in a world where you might be created in an AI sense, there's even more data pertaining to you available. That becomes a little bit of a red flag."

There's also the fact that models aren't able to unionize in some countries, Bovell explained, including the United States. This means models don't easily have the means to advocate for themselves as a collective.

"We need to make sure models are protected," she said. 

"In a world where everybody has to prepare for the future of work, we [need to] give the right tools and systems of support for fashion models going forward."

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.