Is AI Making Our Lives Better or Easier?
The answer is both. AI is making our lives better and easier.
Life is boring. Life has got me down. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, life has changed more than ever. The government tells the citizens: ‘No gatherings. Stay at home. Stay alert. Practice social distancing.’ The school announces a new teaching method: ‘We are going to conduct online classes for the whole semester for the safety of us all.’ My dad reminds me: ‘Don’t forget to wear your mask!’ I sigh with frustration: ‘I feel empty. I don’t want to waste my time anymore.’
So I tried to find a way to make my life more enjoyable. I applied myself. I attended classes, worked on assignments, and just be myself. And then I thought to myself that this isn’t so bad. Despite taking online classes for the first time (of course professors were teaching online for the first time, too), I particularly enjoyed having to work on multiple group projects in the Interaction Design class taught by Nao Tokui Professor. A free exchange of ideas and opinions with the best team has enlightened me on how AI can infuse us with a sense of hope.
The first task given to us was to create a glitch page that includes the Teachable Machine implementation using an image dataset. Our group collected and trained a total of 6,000 images for six facial expressions that one has to match with the emoji(s). The game is called Emotion Game Lightning Round, which we believed could be a great opportunity to help users to express their emotions amid the COVID-19 outbreak. To be frank, we did not focus on making the model ‘perfect’ but rather on the purport of our message in the work to relax one’s expression. The whole process along with sharing the project in class was a pleasurable experience for me and my teammates as the professor and classmates enjoyed playing the game. (Besides, our group LINE meetings were full of laughter!) We do not need happiness to be big; we can find happiness in little things.
With many companies transitioning their business offline to online as much as possible, so did bonding with co-workers in Nomikai (translates to a drinking party) switching to online has become a trend in Japan. For example, Japanese companies such as Gree and MyRefer have offered to subsidize online food and drink to promote interpersonal bonds among colleagues.¹ Even in such remote gatherings, drinking online has been shown to be effective in entertaining employees with facilitated communication. Now, it is official that companies can hold Nomikai events on Takunomu that provides an online drinking party service. How did AI make people’s lives easier? AI allowed people to maintain communication with others while having fun, and at the same time, to observe the social distancing policy.
The second group project was to create a glitch page in a format this****mayexist.com to train a GAN model using RunwayML. Our group agreed with the idea of picking up dress pictures from the internet (Pinterest) and some of the relatively inexpensive clothing brand sites (H&M and Topshop) to generate new dresses that can inspire the imagination of customers and fashion stylists alike. Again, we do not need the dresses to be ‘modest’. We want this simple GAN image of a one-piece dress to give a rough idea of a design sketch of dresses and to be improved within the stylist’s visual language. Anything can be a source of inspiration.
The impact of the novel coronavirus has hit the global fashion industry hard. Fashion Weeks were constantly being canceled to prevent human-to-human transmission of the disease. However, Bigthinx chose a different path. It used 3D digital avatars of a supermodel instead of human fashion models to create a virtual runway show video.² It was also displayed under the theme of World Oceans Day to show support on the promotion of environmentally sustainable development. How did AI make our lives better? AI has enabled the adoption of digital technology in the fashion industry to provide an online showcase for the stylists and buyers around the world.
Let’s explore this a little bit more. How far can AI learn from bulk image data? The Intelistyle has tested an A.I. driven style app at London Fashion Week to find out whether influencers and fashion stylists preferred the style of a pair of outfit (without a label) that is created by a human influencer or AI. Surprisingly, 70% of the participants “unwittingly chose the AI-derived looks” (Roberts-Islam 2019).³ This study conducted by the Intelistyle team shows that AI has outperformed human stylists and was able to “extract the essence of style” using deep learning (Roberts-Islam 2019). In some sense, it reveals that AI can affect our decisions in the future from making hasty to wise choices considering the consumption of unsustainable fast fashion when customers are given computer-generated outfits that are made with responsible materials.
Even in this unprecedented global health crisis, people did not let themselves have their expectations and hopes to be dashed. People continued to find new ways or alternatives to inspire themselves and get support from AI to add value to their work. I, only a beginner, had fun creating group projects with the implementation of machine learning. Taking online classes is indeed convenient. However, it is important to realize that AI in the pandemic age has given people hope of a better future life to look forward to. There is more to discover about the application of AI in everyday lives yet. Thus, AI can be a very powerful and useful tool to rejuvenate and increase vitality in an individual or community life.
[1] Sugiura, Eri. (10 April 2020). “Coronavirus Drives Japan Workmates to Drink and Bond Online.” Nikkei Asian Review. asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Coronavirus-drives-Japan-workmates-to-drink-and-bond-online.
[2] Chowdary, Asha. (13 June 2020). “Avatars on the Catwalk: Bigthinx Powers AI Fashion Show Online.” YourStory.com. YSWeekender. yourstory.com/weekender/fashion-avatars-bigthinx-fashinnovation-virtual-show.
[3] Roberts-Islam, Brooke. (28 Feb 2019). “Artificial Intelligence Software Outperforms Human Stylists at Fashion Week.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine. www.forbes.com/sites/brookerobertsislam/2019/02/28/artificial-intelligence-software-outperforms-human-stylists-at-fashion-week/.
