THE Incorporation of AI into Carnival can improve the festival, but failure to leverage the technology can lead to loss of employment in the future.
These were some of the comments made by the panel at the Queen's Hall Together AI Symposium held on September 18 on the topic, H-A.I. Mas: the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on T&T Carnival.
The panel featured Lost Tribe band producer/designer Valmiki Maraj, Advance Dynamics technical director Alvern Porter, Caesar's Army CEO Jules Sobion, University of Trinidad and Tobago programme leader of Carnival Studies Dr Kela Francis, and entertainment and sports lawyer Carla Parris.
Maraj said he and his team are excited by the possibility of AI and reported they have been using AI to help pull and categorise his many designs. He recalled they had to do a mock-up for the opening of the Commonwealth Games but none of his designers were available and they used AI to generate it.
"And I was absolutely amazed that in a short period of time I was able to give a possibility to my client."
Asked by panel moderator and media personality Jayron "Rawkus" Remy if people should be concerned that certain jobs will be replaced by AI, Maraj replied he did not think so. He said he has seen a couple of times when there were technology jumps and people feared they would lose their jobs.
"What it forces us to do...is to develop a different set of skills and it forces us to look at the world in a different way."
He said many of his graphic designers complain that he comes to them with too much rudimentary work such as the design of a party invite.
"I cannot speak for the future to say nobody is going to lose their jobs. But...if we ever stand in the face of adversity and change and evolution and do nothing we will be displaced."
Maraj said TT mas is kinetic and while AI can generate an idea and place it on paper to understand a space and how a costume moves on a body requires a skilled professional.
Porter also chimed in and said that as with the 80s, when people who could only use typewriters were replaced by those who were computer literate, some jobs will be replaced by AI. He recalled he used AI to generate a mango juice advertisement.
"Unfortunately, in the next five to ten years either you are able to leverage AI to make your company better or a lot of people going to be unemployed."
On the use of AI, he stressed that it is an assistant and is not a replacement for human skills.
A game changer
Sobion said he had not really seen the use of AI per se in Carnival, but from an events standpoint Caesar's Army uses it for customer service and data collection.
"Caesar's Army is very community-driven and having data is particularly key. We can understand that from TT Carnival as well. We don't have the data to even understand holistically what Carnival represents to us and that deep dive...and analytical approach."
He said from a Carnival standpoint the sky is the limit when it comes to costume design and the best route, while from an events perspe
