The only way to beat AI
You are going to get copied, if not your actual exterior (we’re talking lookalikes and deepfake), but also your creative work. However this is nothing new. Since the dawn of time, all the greats and the people in the middle of the genius idea spectrum have all been copied. Now well into the modern age, people continue to copy other people’s inventions, ideas, words and stories. Because it is easy and it is there to be copied.
Fashion trends in itself is copycat 101. Every designer follows another designer, nobody is reinventing the collar. Would there be a Project Runway if Cleopatra never wore a toga?
One of the best work advice I got from a friend/mentor was “figure out who your competition is and whatever they do best, do the total opposite of that and better.” AI is now your biggest competition that you’ll ever meet. And it’s not going away. The very smart people will hopefully get it and will not allow the works of an AI image to fool them out of money or valuable time. The human touch is what will forever be lacking in AI’s efforts to dominate everyday tasks and bigger projects that will sustain in everyone’s memory. The next time you visit an art museum, stare extra longer, concentrate on the work in front of you. Observe the human touch that went into the construction. Every minute that went into each brushstroke or sculpture, will forever be something magnificent.
As more high street brands and probably luxury as well, start to use AI images instead of humans in their campaigns, there will be some pullback from customers. It won’t hurt sales as much, but I would assume it’ll hurt them in the brand loyalty aspect. And at some point you’re going to need to start asking yourself, “am I buying the product or are am I buying the brand?”
My prediction is that by 2028, nostalgia will be the biggest category trend across the board. From early aughts phones, gadgets, films, cars, print magazines, every merchandise produced before the great pandemic of 2020 will be a high commodity of coveted finds. Gen Z will especially crave to know more of how life was truly like before 2020, before everything was 24/7 voice-activated, self-driving and not a technological imposter that is fed to us on a daily basis.
