Why People Hate AI

The Business of Fashion Podcast

The Business of Fashion

Arts, Fashion & Beauty, Business

4.5 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since the earliest days of tools like ChatGPT and Claude, industry conversations have been marked by a tension between excitement around speed and efficiency alongside deep-seated fears of job loss, creative dilution and concerns about its environmental footprint. What once played out in theory is now unfolding in practice – as a broader rejection of what AI represents — particularly as more consumers view AI-generated content as a cost-cutting measure that erodes fashion’s human touch,

In this episode, The Debrief host Sheena Butler-Young discusses with BoF correspondents Marc Bain and Haley Crawford why the backlash is intensifying and how consumer sentiment against brands using AI-generated imagery is forcing a reckoning. They explore whether fashion can actually embrace these tools without losing the care and time that confers luxury status.

Key Insights:

Consumers are moving past passive skepticism around AI and increasingly displaying a more visceral negative reaction to AI visuals.
In an industry built on originality and attribution, AI is often perceived as shortcutting the creative process — or worse, borrowing from artists without credit. For many, it raises uncomfortable questions about what constitutes real creative ownership.
At the same time, there is growing concern that AI could erode both the craft and the pipeline behind fashion creativity, threatening entry-level roles and the time, care and human touch that underpin luxury’s value.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the debrief from the business of fashion, where each week we delve
0:12.5	into our most popular B.O.F professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm
0:17.9	senior correspondent, Sheena Butler Young. Since the earliest days of tools like
0:23.7	ChachyPT, Claude, and Gemini, AI has been defined by a kind of split-screen reaction.
0:29.7	Excitement around speed, efficiency, and instant answers, alongside fears about job loss,
0:34.8	creative erosion, and more recently, the technology's environmental
0:37.8	toll.
0:39.4	For a while, those tensions mostly played out in theory.
0:42.4	Now they're playing out in the real world, and the reaction is getting harder to ignore.
0:46.8	We're seeing everything from viral backlash against brands using AI-generated imagery
0:51.0	to more extreme reactions aimed at the tech leaders themselves.
0:54.6	What was once a debate about capability has turned into something more visceral, a broader
0:59.3	rejection of what AI represents. Today I'm joined by B.O.F. Mark B.O.F. Mark, Mark,
1:04.4	Mark, Wayne, and Haley, to unpack why the backlash is intensifying, and whether fashion can
1:09.4	embrace AI without losing the very human touch
1:11.8	that defines it. Mark Haley, welcome to the debrief. Hi, Sheena. Thanks for having us. I'm so happy
1:17.8	you guys are here. So Mark, I want to start with you. In your reporting, you point to a more significant
1:22.9	uptick and negativity around AI. Can you talk to us about why you think the backlash reached a fever pitch in the last few months?
1:30.1	Is there one particular factor or a thing that happened that really explains why it's intensified so much?
1:36.0	I don't think it's just one thing.
1:37.5	I think it's been slowly building for, you know, a couple of years at least.
1:41.8	And I think what's happened in 2026 is it's, it is just
	...

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