Sustainable Crafts in an Age of Advanced Technology was a talk held at the EDGE Showroom during this year’s London Craft Week. The purpose of the talk was to determine which craft operations that are now pricey can be moved to robotics to make them more accessible to the broader artisan community. The discussion on several important issues as highlighted below.
Craft objects are loved and appreciated, typically in a quaint fashion, but their longevity is generally doubted. This could be due to the fact that small crafts centres, particularly in rural places, cannot afford high-tech technology to produce to market standards. One of the true unique selling points of AI-designed and made crafts would be the affordable mass multiplication of activities provided by robotics which could drastically lower production costs.
The issue of affordable manufacturing technology is a huge challenge for the artisanal community. However, some aspects of manufacturing can be automated. For example, some repetitive tasks can be done by robots, which could be much cheaper than human labour. However, most of the traditional manufacturing techniques such as weaving and knitting can not be automated. This can be a problem in the future. Weaving is a labour intensive process which is almost impossible to automate. At the same time, it is one of the most important traditional craft industries.
With the advancement of AI and robotics, there is a concern of mass job loss. The textile sector in India is a classic example. Is there a way to combine technology with craft abilities in a way that benefits both the creator and the product?
One of the solutions is to train people in the existing techniques and then encourage them to use AI for the technologies which are difficult for human beings to do. This can also help people learn the existing technology and adapt them to new technologies.
In the coming years, AI will be able to make objects which are impossible for human beings to make. This will change the way humans look at craft. This could help people create objects with higher levels of functionality and beauty.
It was an enlightening discussion that made everyone realise the need to have a closer look at the challenges of sustainable crafts in the advent of modern and future technologies. If it didn’t inspire you to keep abreast of the latest developments in this field, it made you reflect on the impact and the possible disruption likely to be brought about by technology into our age-old crafts.
