In the industrial town of Rupganj outside Dhaka, clothing manufacturer Fakir Fashions is using artificial intelligence to automatically pause production and avoid waste when something goes wrong.
AI technology has also allowed the fashion supplier, which employs about 10,000 workers, to dismiss dozens of human quality inspectors, said managing director Fakir Kamruzzaman Nahid.
Suppliers and brands across the US$1.7 trillion global fashion industry are beginning to use AI technology, such as in cameras and sensors that detect defects, to boost production and to reduce their environmental impact, including by monitoring emissions and water use.
The sector is responsible for between two to eight per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. It is also one of the world's major polluters of water sources and produces vast amounts of waste.
While AI could improve the apparel business' environmental track record, it also threatens some of the 75 million jobs in the labour-intensive industry worldwide, already under pressure from other forms of automation.
"We know what is coming on fashion's AI front. And, if workers do not get to have a say about how it impacts them, they are at a disadvantage as a class," said Christina Hajagos-Clausen, textile and garment industry director at IndustriALL Global Union, a Geneva-based global federation of unions.
A survey of fashion industry executives by consulting firm McKinsey found that 73 per cent of them consider AI a priority in the coming years.
While there is no comprehensive research into AI's potential to reduce the industry's emissions, a few studies offer clues at how it might help.
For example, using digital samples before production could cut carbon dioxide emissions by 30 per cent in the design and development of clothes.
Sweden's H&M Group, the world's second-largest clothing retailer, has said it is investing in AI tools to recycle post-consumer waste and reduce deforestation by fashion manufacturers.
Smartex, a company based in Portugal that is developing AI for the textile industry, has sold its technology to help save energy and water to factories in about 10 countries, said Max Easton, director of global innovation.
AI-powered automation is expected to revolutionise the way humans work in almost all industries. As many as 74 per cent of business executives from different industries expect some manual jobs to be replaced by AI, according to a recent survey by the British Standards Institution.
In Bangladesh, the world's second-biggest garment exporter, about 60 per cent of apparel workers, or 2.7 million people, risk losing their jobs due to automation including AI, according to the International Labour Organisation.
But some experts believe that the textile industry will still need human labour, especially for complex, high-skilled work.
"The influence of AI on jobs is a million-dollar question that we are all pondering, and my wager is that AI in fashion will complement rather than replace humans," said Shahriar Akter, professor of analytics and innovation at Australia's University of Wollongong.
While Fakir Fashions reduced its quality control workforce after bringing in AI, Nahid said the money it saved on those wages and on the hundreds of kilos of waste the tools prevented will enable it to expand operations — and add new jobs.
"To stay competitive, we need to cut costs and adopt new innovations. But better tools also will bring us business and make up for the job losses," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
* The writer is from Reuters