I understand the appeal of this tech to techies. It's so cool to automate knitting!

Though it totally misses the point of actually knitting something, with your own hands. The time it takes, the details you need to think about, the skills you work on perfecting, the quiet evening on the sofa or in a cafe with friends, chatting and knitting away, all that goes into a piece of clothing that you've knitted. Letting a machine do that is completely missing out.

I feel similarly about AI generated music. Taking the musician out of the loop misses the point of the whole thing.

But this talks about the mass production of garments. Nobody at the Zara factory is having a quiet evening knitting on the sofa.

The idea of this is: knitting on demand, customizable, less waste.

You can still knit your things at home if you want to do your own stuff, or relax a bit...

This is knitting as a method of mass-production. It's not cannibalizing hobby knitters making hats and gloves for their loved ones at Christmas. The comparison to AI music doesn't work because that is trying to occupy the same space as musical artists.

Depends whether you see it as a production method or an art/recreational activity. There can be both, and don't worry, hand-made products will always have a special value. Even if everybody can order custom made knitted sweater from a machine.

Knitting by hand is for fun, with a by product of getting clothes. No one does it to make all their clothes, it’s highly impractical in this day and age.

Most garments have been knitted on knitting machines since the 1850s

No, it doesn't miss the point. Different people have different interests. Knitting just hits more overlapping Venn diagrams than just one.

The goal is the path... a concept often foreign to western, to contemporary, to techies.