Algorithms have constantly been in the news in the last few years: used in all sorts of industries and fields - from transport and communication to healthcare and science - they have become the protagonists of many tech stories. Fashion usually dictates trends, but in this case it just jumped on the tech bandwagon: as seen in previous posts, algorithms are employed in this industry in a wide range of applications, some companies use them as stylists for consumers but they are also employed to design and implement elements of footwear, while there are researches about creative algorithms that can spot a trend, alter its style and redesign a garment. But what if the algorithms so far developed for fashion applications could mutate?
Algorithms are programmed to fulfil specific functions and analyse pieces of data. The best thing about them is not that they are super clever (they aren't in fact...), but that they are very fast and they are capable of processing a vast amount of data in a relatively short time.
At the moment algorithms are used for complex analyses, but also for quick valuations: you can easily calculate if you can get a loan from a specific bank and how much you will be able to borrow thanks to algorithms and the reason you may not get that dream job is that you haven't optmized your personal profile on that industry-standard recruiting website.
Algorithms, though, have a secret life: they do not need a human to run, they can function, learn from their environments and change themselves as they run (Google's DeepMind division has been studying machine learning and deep learning in particular to see if it is possible to teach computers to mimic the thought processes of a human brain). Once they start learning, algorithms can begin mutating their behaviour and the way they interact with other algorithms and with the rest of the world, becoming unpredictable. This is more or less what happened in March this year when the onboard algorithms on a specially adapted self-driving Volvo car travelling on a road in Arizona were unable to detect the real nature of an object near it, that was actually not an inanimate thing, but a woman on a bicycle carrying her shopping. After more calculations the control of the car was passed back to the human driver who was too distracted and the car hit and killed the woman.
Programmers do have a name for codes going crazy - "spaghetti code" - a term indicating a jumble of algorithms that can rewrite parts of their codes and end up producing a chaotic environment regulated by their own rules and with unpredictable outputs. In a nutshell these algorithms are similar to organisms evolving beyond the control of humans.
Which takes us to the main theme of this post: what happens if an algorithm employed in the fashion industry mutates? Will it simply start telling us that a colour is more fashionable than another, add a third alien sleeve to an ordinary two-sleeved jacket or suggest us to follow this influencer rather than that one? We can't say for sure, but the possibilities are endless.
Healthcare, transportation and the military are more vital sectors than fashion: they are algorithm adopters and may end up suffering from mutating algorithms (what if a machine that is supposed to automatically release a specific dose of a drug into a human system goes crazy or if a military drone hits the wrong target?).
As much as this sounds like a sci-fi story, it may actually happen as algorithms regulating the stock market have already gone crazy in the past, so this could happen in other fields, fashion included. Mind you, there may be an intriguing twist in the story.
In some tech circles the unpredictability of mutating algorithms is seen as an asset: if a weapon starts indeed to act in a way that can not be predicted, it will be difficult to damage it with algorithmic-controlled systems designed to destroy it.
Fashion feeds on unpredictability: though we know that it also works in cycles and what was trendy 20 years ago may be fashionable again now, fashion is capricious, it changes everyday, constantly feeding on fluidity and impermanence (often what is deemed as ugly one week, becomes painfull hip and cool the next...). Time will tell, after all everything depends on the way algorithms are programmed, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if erratic rogue codes ended up playing not against, but in favour of the modern fashion system.
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