The impact of artificial intelligence on the creative industries is a subject that has prompted widespread anxiety about job losses and the death of imagination, and the world of fashion is no exception. But this month's London fashion week, marking the event's 40th anniversary, will showcase a host of AI-generated outfits and industry insiders have expressed a growing optimism about what the technology can do for the sector – from improving diversity to shortening the path from design desk to shop floor. The head of London College of Fashion's Innovation Agency, Matthew Drinkwater, believes AI will prove a "hugely beneficial tool" for creative processes and for the industry as a whole. "It has opened the door to non-traditional pathways into the fashion industry for people who couldn't get into it before because, let's face it, the industry can have a perception of feeling quite elitist and quite exclusive, and an expensive industry to get into. "But these tools are allowing people from very different backgrounds to begin to have a foothold in the industry.

In December 2015, the revered French fashion house Louis Vuitton made a surprise announcement about the advertising campaign for its forthcoming spring-summer collection. The new range of clothes and accessories would be modelled on screen and in the pages of glossy magazines not by a famous actor or popstar but by a video game character: the pink-haired warrior Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII. Nicolas Ghesquière, the brand's creative director told the press he considered Lightning to be the "perfect avatar for a global heroic woman". The fictional character even carried out interviews to promote the partnership. It was not the first time a fashion brand had collaborated with a major video game. Previously, H&M, Moschino and Diesel had made digital clothes for The Sims.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in fashion is no longer a secret and has widely been used to mostly help businesses to streamline processes and increase sales. But the skillsets of fashion designers and computer scientists are miles apart, so it's not until recently that the creative applications of AI in this industry have been explored. "Initial uses of artificial intelligence have focused on quantifiable business needs, which has allowed for start-ups to offer a service to brands," Matthew Drinkwater, head of the fashion innovation agency (FIA) at London College of Fashion (LCF), told Forbes. "Creativity is much more difficult to quantify and therefore more likely to follow behind." Seeing the opportunity for AI to play a bigger role in the creative process, LFC has launched an AI course aiming to develop creative fashion solutions and experiences that challenge the current approaches to fashion design.

In 2018, Silicon Valley, like Hamlet's engineer, was hoist with its own petard. Citizens were panicking about data privacy, researchers were sounding alarms about artificial intelligence, and even industry stakeholders rebelled against app addiction. Policymakers, meanwhile, seemed to take a renewed interest in breaking up big tech, as a string of congressional hearings put CEOs in the hot seat over the products they made. Everywhere, techies were grasping for answers to the unintended consequences of their own creations. So the Omidyar Network--a "philanthropic investment firm" created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar--set out to provide them.

Robots can be added to human teams to provide improved capabilities or to perform tasks that humans are unsuited for. However, in order to get the full benefit of the robots the human teammates must use the robots in the appropriate situations. If the humans do not trust the robots, they may underutilize them or disuse them which could result in a failure to achieve team goals. We present a robot that is able to estimate its trustworthiness and adapt its behavior accordingly. This technique helps the robot remain trustworthy even when changes in context, task or teammates are possible.