Will Tech Industry in 21st C. follow Fashion Industry in 20th C with Job Fragmenting?
Matt Welsh, professor of computer science at Harvard, “A massive shift is on the horizon.… Disruption has come for industry after industry.”
“Disruption” means a problem in a system for a moment, and may pass. “Fragmenting” means many problems in many parts, because there is no coordination, and no one is seeing the “Whole Picture”.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with AI. It is just another sector in tech industry which is increasingly dividing itself with little or no coordination.
Money is an issue. “Jonathan Bell, assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern says, ‘Companies say, ‘With the same amount of money, I could have software that does more … You can lay off 30% of your staff.’ Fashion manufacturers said: “Less availability of factory workers and they cost too much. Let’s go overseas for availability and cheaper production.”
In the following graphic, “The Wall Between Design & Manufacturing”, you can clearly see that increasing fragmentation became a wall between two major sectors of the industry - Design & marketing on one side, and pattern & production on the other side. I created this graphic for my engineering design grants from NSF,1990s for “Identification of the Problem”. My hope was to create a computerized image language, Stylometrics, for better communication and understanding between the two sectors, and between jobs in each sector.
In my own company, Shirley Willett, Inc. we did most in house. We had our own showroom in New York, to where the retailers came to buy. I only did ads with some retailers, as I did not want to build a brand — I built an excellent product and an excellent production system. I tried contractors, but the quality was so poor I gave them up. I started not getting good workers in the 1980s, even with training them and with no problem with wages - I sold my business.
Gradually CAD technology came into the industry that exacerbated the problem, by designing completely different programs for creative designers & marketing, and for pattern makers & engineering. Next, it was different technologies for each job on both sides, with all of them having a total lack of understanding of any of the others — especially, a lack of understanding design engineering, and pattern engineering. Education made it worse, because teachers had no understanding and no respect for fashion as an industry, as many taught couture dressmaking of the 19th C. There was a rise of “elitism” of some parts over others.
In the tech industry we see a lack of understanding between programmers and engineers in software. As example, I designed some software in fashion in my grant work. Programming code takes time, so I offered to help, and a tech engineer set it up for me to program the code. I am no engineer in tech, even though I’m a pattern engineer in fashion. Interestingly, programming is analogous to pattern-making — each makes things work. Steve Jobs, Apple, said, “Design is not how it looks — It’s how it works.” Perhaps everyone needs to study words we use and how they communicate to others?
Yesterday’s Boston Globe was on how AI would take jobs from humans in tech industry. Today’s paper (March 17th) Catherine Carlock writes: “In biotech world, a glut of space … Building boom-bust cycle comes for this sector … and buildings open to empty … for the life-science industry. … Cuts are more common than hiring sprees. … Why did we build so much, so fast? [Recall how clothing industry over-produced cheap stuff?] … Venture capital funding has dropped … Some projects have been scrapped… [then, she added] The battery-tech maker laid off staff.”
A reader commented on Carlock’s story: “Really insightful journalism until the piece failed to call it for what it is: A market failure of labor, capital, and public resources for little to no return for anyone. All the space built for a single sector -how incredibly shortsighted and foolish.”
I beg of the tech industry to learn from the past fashion clothing industry. There is a saying that if you do not learn from history you are bound to repeat it.
