AI Crochet Images and Patterns

 The Rise of AI in the Art World

What do you think of this image? It's very pretty at first glance, isn't it? Does it make you immediately want to seek out the pattern to make them yourself? You're not alone. I took this image from a random page on Facebook that showed up on my newsfeed. I have no idea who originally made it. It's being shared by pages that appear to be run by bots, as the caption is always the exact same. 

So What's the Problem?

The problem is these crochet parrots are not real. That is not real crochet. The photo is generated by AI. How can you tell? Firstly, they are too perfect. Creating crochet birds that could sit like that on a perch without falling over would be challenging. The direction of some of the stitches doesn't make sense. If you zoom in, you can see the stitches on the head especially do not look like crochet stitches. The yellow feathers on the left bird's head look like real feathers, which you wouldn't be able to replicate in crochet. 

Sure you could just attach feathers to the plushie. The beaks look very smooth, and don't appear like crochet. Again, I guess you could get plastic ones and attach them. On closer inspection, the stitches do not look like crochet. Yet on Facebook I saw a lot of people praising them and asking for the pattern. The link to the pattern did not lead to any crochet patterns. One person was even getting angry at the people who called this out as AI. 

Crochet allows you to make all kinds of shapes and items, that's one of the best things about it. The problem is that with the increase in AI everywhere, people are realising that they can use AI to get views and traffic to make money. They scam people by posting these incredible looking projects, but even if they are selling a pattern, it probably isn't what you think it's going to be. There are loads of these examples. I've put a couple below. 

AI Art

AI is plaguing the entire art world. Anyone can be a "digital artist" now by using AI prompts. Sure, coming up with the right prompt to get the image you want may take a bit of creativity, but there's no skill involved. True artists, both digital and physical media, have honed their skills and nurtured their talents to create beautiful things. Yet now, people are using AI to create images and selling it. AI art is getting better, but there can still be little hints that it's not created by a human, such as a person having six fingers on one hand or something that's just not quite the right shape. There's often a bit of an "uncanny valley" feel to a lot of AI art. 

On Amazon, there's been a huge plague of AI written books being sold. AI created videos on YouTube and social media. It's everywhere. I've seen so many adverts recently for new phones and computers having powerful AI tools. It's not going away, and to me, it's disturbing. AI can be a useful tool. I know that it is being employed in medicine for pathology and diagnostic imaging, as it can be trained to spot abnormalities and can process images and microscope slides faster than a human can and more accurately. When I went to a veterinary conference in 2022, I learned about it being employed for diagnosing cancer. 

AI is Stealing Art

AI is a complex algorithm, it's all programming and cannot really create anything new out of nothing. That's why it needs to be trained. It needs to learn what a human looks like in order to create an image of one. So how do they train AI software? By feeding it existing works of art and literature. Feeding it thousands of photographs and social media posts. Feeding it news articles and blog posts. Skimming the internet for data. 

It's already happening. Just the other week I got a notification from Meta that they were going to be using all data posted on their platforms to train their AI. Because of the UK's GDPR laws, data protection is very strict here, I could opt out of this. I did, to protect my intellectual property and because I do not like or trust AI. AI art is doing a lot of damage to artists. I am writing my debut novel, and I write crochet patterns. I don't want my stuff being used to train AI. 

They don't make it easy though, you have to really dig through the settings and go through the privacy policy section to find the form and fill it out. Then you send it to Meta and they'll decide if your reason for objecting is good enough. Some people in other parts of the world don't get the option to object. 

Why Art is Important

One of the most important things about humans is our ability to create art. From early cave paintings to the Sistine Chapel, from Herodotus to George RR Martin, from Elvis Presley to Taylor Swift. The traditions of passing down stories, songs and crafts through the generations. Native American's traditional dances and regalia. The traditional poetry here in Scotland from Burns. The Mona Lisa that is pride of place in the Louvre. The humble granny square. Traditional weaving methods. 

I have a friend who studies textiles from history, and she is working on her PhD thesis, studying textiles from the Viking age. I love seeing her posts on social media, because it's so interesting to learn about how these beautiful fabrics were made in a time where machines didn't really exist so all of these things were done by hand. It couldn't be automated. Even when looms were invented, it still required human input. 

Humans are creative. We are made to learn, to explore, to make and to share. AI is constantly getting better and it is becoming more difficult to spot it in the wild. I'm not saying that nobody should use it ever, but when it is used to mislead people for profit, that's a problem. A lot of platforms are starting to crack down on it, requiring you to say that you used AI to make your content. YouTube are doing it, Tik Tok and Meta as well. When posting, you have the option to label your content as AI. 

I think it needs to be better regulated. It's a problem when it is used to mislead people or trick them. It's a problem when it's giving people unrealistic expectations. The photo I used above is very misleading. I suppose in theory it would be possible to make these birds with crochet but I don't know that they would look quite this good. To me, it looks like someone has taken a photo of a pair of parrots and overlaid what appears to be crochet stitches. I also keep seeing photos of what appears to be the same little girl wearing a bunch of different crochet dresses, but the child is in the exact same pose with the exact same expression. It's creepy! There's no way you'd get a real toddler to do the exact same pose and expression in ten different outfits. See what I mean below:

You can see here, this appears to be the same little girl in all these photos, but the fingers in the hand being held look a bit weird and the crochet stitches are indistinct in a lot of the items. These items absolutely could be made by a crocheter, but there's just something off about these. I've seen a bunch of them that are the exact same photo but the colour of the dress has been changed. 

Look at the hands, that's the best way to tell. Zoom in on where the child's hand is being held and you'll see what I mean. Hands are a dead giveaway. I mean, real human artists struggle to draw hands, anatomically they're complex. AI clearly struggles with it as well!

My Advice?

Take a closer look. If a crochet photo looks almost too good to be true, it probably is. On a decent quality photo of crochet, you should be able to zoom in and see the definition of the stitches, especially when it's not a fluffy yarn like chenille. Look for areas where the stitches look blurry. If there's a person in the photo, check hands and count the fingers. Look for any weirdness in posture or facial features. 

Be aware, because there are people using these AI generated images to direct traffic to a website or possibly to sell patterns that don't work. People are using AI to create crochet patterns that are not going to create what you expect. Watch out for the captions on social media posts, see the images I've posted that are using almost the exact same captions even on different pages. You can see that from the photos I have put into this post, all of which showed up in my newsfeed. 

This rooster looks beautiful, but when you look closely, you can see the stitches look blurry and indistinct, and again the beak does not look like it's been crocheted and looks very plastic. The backgrounds of these photos is often very blurred as well. I know that's easy to do with image editing, but it's a common feature in these AI generated images. 

Please support artists, whether they make digital art, traditional art, writing, fibre arts and crafts. Buying from them goes a long way, but even just supporting them on social media, liking and sharing their work. If you are in need of art or an illustration, go to an artist instead of using AI to make it. AI has it's place, but we need to be careful that it doesn't take over everything, especially our creative pursuits. 

Thanks for reading. I hope this has been interesting, and I'd love to hear any thoughts you have. Do you disagree with what I've said? Do you think AI technology needs better regulation? Let me know!

Please note that all of these images were taken from public social media pages and are used here for the purpose of demonstration, critique and illustration.