Is AI ruining the yarn loving community?

With the recent explosion of so called “AI Art” infiltrating online spaces like Pinterest, Etsy, Instagram and even Youtube more and more crocheters, knitters and artists are asking the question, who is this all for?

In this post I will be referring to AI Art however calling anything generated by AI “art” only demeans all the amazing time, effort and passion artists put into their their true art. AI only steals these works and reassembles them (without attribution or often authority) to create something that is not a result of creativity but rather laziness.

In the yarn loving world this has resulted in a sea of perfectly lit, dream like images where each ball of yarn is made up of strands wrapped with un-human precision and yarn tails that seem to defy gravity spiralling perfectly into space. The scissors are elaborate works of ornate metal often depicting animals that somehow have one too many finger holes or oddly places mechanisms that would never work in reality but hey who cares if it looks cool, right?

When it comes to images of crochet or knitted pieces it only only gets worse, with stitches that are not quite made by knitting or crocheting but rather a suggestion of what real yarn-work looks like. Elaborate designs with techniques unknown to man (or machine for that matter) show images of works that are impossible to achieve but can often entice those who are unaware of the “wolf in a sheep’s clothes” before them into purchasing pattern that at best is stolen work for something completely different or worse AI slop that will never make anything more than a yarn blob let alone a crochet masterpiece.

Coming back to the question at hand, who is this all for? The craft of crochet and knitting requires patience, dedication and time, it is often taught through generations of families as a way to bond and create hand made piece that are both useful in everyday life and also give maker a sense of pride and accomplishment at what they achieved with their own hands! AI seems to be the very antithesis of this, it requires no real creativity or effort to use and images made using it are not accurate representations of the stitches and techniques cultivated over generations but rather some strange made up version of them and yet we are seeing it used more and more used by popular companies and even crochet/knitting content creators like myself.

Recently I saw a few videos for projects that the creator had made by hand and yet the thumbnail for the video was completely AI, showing a fake version of the very project they had made… I can’t help but wonder why? It might just be me however I would rather see “flawed” finished pieces where the lighting might be a little off or a stitch is popping out a little different then the rest but I know it’s a real hand made piece, those imperfections are what give it character and humanity.

At the heart of it all these are hand-made crafts and in the case of crochet, machines are not even able to replicate its complex movements made only by the human hands, and that’s what makes it so special! In a digital age where everything is automated there’s a reason why fibre arts have only gained in popularity. The need to reconnect, slow down and focus on something real, something we can make with our own hands and connect with a community of like minded people is stronger than ever. My hope is that the current use of AI is nothing more than a fad, created by the push to involve AI in every aspect of our daily lives but as more and more crafters display their dislike for AI in this space we will see it used less and less (hopefully).

If what draws people to these crafts is the satisfaction of making something with their hands and connecting with a vibrant community of other crafters then surely this digital thief void of creativity has no real place here.

So what can we do about it?

First I’d say educate yourself and others on how to spot AI images, it’s no easy task as they get smarter and better at reproducing these images, things like missing or extra fingers have been a tall tell sign in the past however with recent updates those imperfections are getting less common.

Look for extremely well lit photos that have a dream like atheistic, elaborate designs unlike anything you’ve seen before and question if it could actually be made by hand. The best defence is always to dig a little deeper, who is the designer or artists, check out their social media, reviews and comment sections.

Support your favourite designers! The fight is on to survive this wave of AI slop, pattern makers, designers and artists are getting hit with the worst of it! Gone are the days of posting your work and getting sales based on you talents or marketing alone, now a sea of AI generated images is up all the spaces where real art used to thrive and it is almost impossible to be seen.

Who knows where this new digital age will take us, it’s unlikely that AI will ever “go away” completely however I do believe if we stick together and make it clear we want non of it in our creative spaces we can set the precedent now before it gets any worse.

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