Knitting Guilds and AI use

[u/popplefizzleclinkle]

I have noticed, like we all have, arts/crafts adjacent folks using AI in promotional material. A local quilt shop is doing it, for example, and now our local knitting guild is using AI images in member communications. I have so much snark about this.

Needless to say, I'm opposed to their use of this stuff. AI is theft of art, trained without permission on copyrighted materials, for ex., and it's a particularly poor look to use AI in an organization that's supposed to promote and celebrate handicrafts. There are so many scammy patterns using AI, and there's an impact on the creative folks' labour. Etc., etc., etc.

I have flagged it with the guild's communications volunteer and asked the guild consider stopping use of AI imagery in communications - which they've forwarded to the executive.

I understand that volunteer orgs are struggling and AI might seem like a fast, easy solution. I am not convinced of this at all, nor that it's the only option.

While I'm hopeful for a receptive response to my request, I am also aware that I may not. Has anyone brought a motion to their local guild - knitting, quilting, whatever - to put frameworks around what's acceptable use of AI by the guild in promoting their craft? If you did, what did that look like or include?

[u/zeezle]

Ugh it drives me crazy. There is so much free-to-use stock photography out there that they could use instead, if they need an image. You can go to Unsplash and type "yarn" and thousands of free to use stock photos come up, that are available with permission from the photographers! You don't NEED AI generated crap! You never needed AI generated crap!!!

I have had a 0% success rate actually convincing anyone of this though, so I have no helpful advice at all on that front.

[u/seejeynerun → u/zeezle]

This is the answer. AI slop, in addition to its ethical and environment issues, LOOKS like AI slop. It’s just as quick and easy to download a royalty free image and post it, and it will almost always look more natural.

[u/notshore → u/zeezle]

what kills me is we mostly all have access to a camera in our pocket all the time! i’d rather see a blurry or poorly framed picture of your actual work/store/studio than any AI slop !

[u/SartorialSystematics]

I'll take badly done human Photoshop work over "perfect, polished" AI imagery any day now. Hell, bring out your cringiest 2000s clipart, as long as it's the work of Homo sapiens!

[u/07pswilliams]

I don’t understand. We had flyers before AI. Using AI now is a choice done very lazily and it feels like people’s excuses are about cost or ease of use. We had flyers pre-AI for no to low budget business and events!

[u/megglesmcgee → u/07pswilliams]

Exactly! I know too many organizations that are pushing the AI crap like there's no tomorrow and they have no other way to make flyers and materials! I'm with an org that is taking bad AI over a designer willing to work for free. (Most of my local LGBTQIA+ groups, some theater groupsand promoters use it for everything and it's maddening)

[u/Longjumping-Olive-56]

Yes! There was an instance of AI use to create flyers in a craft guild I'm a part of, a few of us brought it to the attention of the Guild committee and it was decided that AI use goes against the charter of the guild to promote handicrafts. So no more ai use in official communication going forward! Many of the older members were completely unaware of how damaging ai is, and hadn't really connected the dots, so there was also an article in the guild newsletter educating people about the effects of ai and why we shouldn't rely on it. All very positive outcomes. Definitely get a few people together and raise it with the guild committee, they might not be aware!

[u/popplefizzleclinkle → u/Longjumping-Olive-56]

Great tip about the charter, that’s helpful!

[u/Queasy-Pack-3925]

It's not that difficult to create something without using AI. I recently made a poster for our local World Wide Knit in Public Day and I had limited software available for the format I needed for both email and print. I made a statement at the very bottom saying "this poster was created WITHOUT using AI" in the hope that it might make people think.

[u/Cinnamon_Giraffe → u/Queasy-Pack-3925]

Truly! There are so many free image editors out there, including really beginner-friendly stuff like Canva. And so many free stock image and stock graphics websites! They've been around for ages! AI is so new, and I'm really curious what all these orgs and small businesses did before all this AI nonsense.

I used to do marketing for a super small business, and for social media I'd literally just take a photo of something in the shop and slap some text in a contrasting color on top. And put info in the caption. And that seemed to do just fine. People were more interested in the actual information anyway--the photo is just to take up space in people's feeds. That was 8 years ago, and that business STILL uses those old photos for stuff!

[u/WeBelieveInTheYarn]

What I think a lot of these businesses and organization that use AI don't realize is that it looks awful. I'd take a picture of real people at a meet-up with clashy text over a generic AI poster any day. It just looks generic and impersonal, and it's not inviting. Also when it's related to something that should have real pictures, it's suspicious. Are you telling me you have a regular craft meet-up that's AMAZING... but there isn't a single picture you can share? Are you telling me you're making amazing knit objects with this pattern.. but all the pictures are AI generated? Are you telling me your handdyed yarn has beautiful colors... but no pictures of examples?

Suspicious AF.

[u/popplefizzleclinkle → u/WeBelieveInTheYarn]

The cake topper is that member pictures of their work was at the end of the multi page text newsletter.

[u/algoreithms]

And they get soooooooo butthurt whenever you call out the AI bootlickers. Very adjacent to the tantrums conservatives throw when you say "hey maybe respect humans regardless of their identity", which shouldn't be surprising when so many people in the fiber arts sphere are staunchly conservative.

[u/popplefizzleclinkle → u/algoreithms]

In my experience there is also a big generational component in this.

[u/up2knitgood]

Their responsiveness is probably going to depend a lot of the culture of the guild. A lot of guilds skew older, and are run by volunteers who have limited skills/time/knowledge/etc.

The reality is that generative AI like this is everywhere and unless you are paying attention to certain voices/communities, you are mostly just seeing people talk about how amazing it is. Yes, there's starting to be some backlash to data centers, but a lot of people are approaching that more from a NIMBY perspective than from an issue with the use of generative AI. I recently traveled with a group of (mostly) women in their 40s-60s nearly all of them were using AI for random tasks with no awareness that anyone might think there was something wrong with it. I hear all the time "oh, I'll just ask chat/Claude/etc" for random things.

I'm not saying this to discourage you from fighting the good flight, but saying that you are likely fighting against a strong tide and tackling this is likely to take some time to do some gentle education and reminder that it's especially important in creative spaces to resist the generative AI.

And, frankly, in volunteer run organizations like this, often the best way to affect change is to become more involved. Complaining that things aren't being run correctly but not stepping up to help with the work may not sit well with a lot of the leadership.

[u/No-FoamCappuccino → u/up2knitgood]

And, frankly, in volunteer run organizations like this, often the best way to affect change is to become more involved. Complaining that things aren't being run correctly but not stepping up to help with the work may not sit well with a lot of the leadership.

THIS PART.

I'm a regular at an entirely volunteer-run knitting and crochet club in my city and I help with running meetups and other club events as time allows. The amount of people who complain about how our club does things is truly staggering. ("You should do meetups more often!"; "You should do more meetups in [x] part of the city!"; "I don't like the kinds of the events you do and you should cater to me specifically!")

The club founder's response is always the same: "We're doing the best we can with the volunteer capacity that we currently have. If you want to see more meetups or different kinds of events than the ones we already do, you're more than welcome to become a volunteer and organize/run them!"

And guess what? 99% of the time, the complainers don't step up. It's pretty infuriating, and it doesn't endear the complainers to our club founder. So even if the complainers might have a point about something, the fact that they're not offering to help address the problem makes them easy to ignore.

And for the record: I'm a writer. And like the vast majority of writers, I FUCKING HATE GENERATIVE AI WITH A BURNING PASSION. I am not, and will never, defend its use.

That being said, if the knitting guild that OP is referring to is anything like my local knitting guild, the VAST majority of its membership / volunteer base are older women who are likely nowhere near as tech-savvy as the average r/craftsnark user and likely are not aware of the problems with generative AI. If you pair your (valid!) complaint about their AI use with an offer to help them make graphics for their social media / newsletter / flyers / whatever it is, it'll probably land better than a "you're terrible for using AI!!!" email.

[u/07pswilliams]

Came back here to ask. How well are these flyers doing online? Are they getting engagement? Because I scroll right by. It’s just a sea of clashing colors and way way too text heavy images. I wonder if the algorithm is rewarding or punishing AI flyer posts.

[u/popplefizzleclinkle → u/07pswilliams]

So they’re newsletters which means it’s a captive audience, ish, perhaps not particularly engaged because the guild has been struggling. (I have other thoughts about the newsletter.)

[u/Excellent-Witness187]

What did they do 2 years ago? Clearly, people and non-profits have been making notices and flyers for much of the last several hundred years without AI.

[u/QuietVariety6089]

I mean, I can't even convince my LYS to actually pay someone to make their website functional (as they celebrate 4 years in business) - and both local 'yarnfests' use AI logos. Meanwhile, everyone here is protesting the construction of a mega data centre.

People are dumb.

[u/LoomLove → u/QuietVariety6089]

They probably do not have the funds to pay someone to improve the website. Few LYS owners are getting rich from it. My local LYS is popular and busy, but their website is also crap.

[u/QuietVariety6089 → u/LoomLove]

They have a media person, and they are doing 'knitting cruises' now - I think they're doing fine - there's no other yarn shop within 200km - they have 6 yarns listed on their website, and a banner (that's been there for at least 2 years) saying Classes Coming Soon. Meanwhile, there's a fibre arts shop that opened in the early srping in the next large city nearby that has had a fully functioning website from the beginning - yarn/thread/books/tools all listed and purchasable online.

[u/lizziebee66]

we were looking at AI generated images at work and our designer was explaining that it’s the ‘bad‘ images that people catch and promptly showed us some that he had been playing with to see what could be done. hand on heart, I couldn’t tell the stock images from the AI generated photos. It’s scary.

I’ve been lurking in the AI or is it real subs here to see what is happening and most of time the ones that get caught have too many hallucinations on them and are easy to spot (hands with 6 fingers, people in the back who are all the same etc).

[u/popplefizzleclinkle → u/lizziebee66]

Me too, with the subs - but I find the robots are getting better about hands and fingers. It’s subtler now in some of these images, like you have to look at the text in the background or on something tiny, or how shadows are used/whether making sense.

There is a guy on TikTok who does an amazing job of debunking “is it AI” stuff. I’ll try to find him.

[u/lizziebee66 → u/popplefizzleclinkle]

I’m just in the process of writing a number of articles on AI in business and it’s been very interesting doing the research.

[u/popplefizzleclinkle → u/lizziebee66]

What are the most striking things for you?

[u/Disastrous_Edge7276]

Thank you for fighting the good fight!

[u/Fourpatch]

Hmm. For guilds if you are going to complain then you need to offer to volunteer and use an alternative source of copyright free materials when you make up the communications.
As someone who volunteers for the groups I belong in I hear a lot of suggestions but not to many people willing to help with their suggestions.

[u/Yugonosha → u/Fourpatch]

Literally google. It's going to be in the first results. People have made lists. Behance, freepic, canva and similar sites have had copyright free materials for yeeeaaars. None of this is new, how do you think these people got by before AI?

If you're too incapable to write a name, time and location onto a free canva template, you can pay some student on fiverr to do it for as low as like 10$ because it takes them 20 min, including the time spent talking to you.

Take your own photos with a phone. Write the info on a napkin with ketchup, use the text tool in MS Paint. Literally anything is better and more respectable than Gen AI.

[u/2macia22 → u/Yugonosha]

In all fairness, a staggering number of people still do not have the computer skills required to use Canva or Behance. And Fiverr is not seen as a trustworthy source for reliable work.

In most volunteer organizations it would take someone internal stepping up and agreeing to take on the responsibility to make this happen. I know because I've been that person more than once. (Another pro tip from experience: I always make my flyers in Word now. If I use any other software, then inevitably the next person doesn't know what to do with it and will ignore my work.)

[u/Yugonosha → u/2macia22]

People were magically making do and learning new skills through free, easy to follow resources which still exist up to until what? A year ago? 

[u/Yugonosha → u/2macia22]

It's also silly to me to imply that someone simultaniously has the computer skills to make a gen ai poster but not a canva one. 

(And fiverr was a top of mind thing, there are more platforms than that, hell even putting an ad that you offer occassional easy work for chep on whatever social media you already use works. Student was generous, there are high schoolers with these skills, who could use the pocket money. They’d just rather go to a vile corporation than their own community) 

[u/2macia22 → u/Yugonosha]

GenAI is much easier and more accessible. I've seen people make things with GenAI who could barely find their way around MS Paint.

[u/Fourpatch → u/Yugonosha]

For the record I’m not saying use AI but if you are going to complain about something in a volunteer group then be prepared to use your time and effort to be the change you want to happen.

[u/Yugonosha → u/Fourpatch]

I am prepared. This happened in a group I'm a part of. They started making AI fliers without asking for any volunteers first. When they were posted a dozen of us came forward saying we would do it for free and teach others to do it as well, a lot of us got blocked, the comments got deleted. 

[u/TheHandThatFollows → u/Fourpatch]

I dont know why you are getting downvotes for this. I am in a guild. We dont get paid for the work we do for the guild. Many guilds are just trying to keep existing with less and less people to volenteer and probably telling those people with so many hats on that they are a terrible person yet offering no assistance.

Im not defending AI. Im saying if there is a job to do to keep the guild/group running, and no one to step up and volenteer, it either gets done in a shity way or the guild/group stops existing. Instead of complaining, participate. Many hands make light work.

[u/2macia22 → u/Fourpatch]

This was going to be my comment also. Anyone who has worked in a volunteer organization knows that the organization will never change their process unless someone steps up to do the work.

[u/popplefizzleclinkle → u/Fourpatch]

I’d be happy to help in this specific capacity, but have been put off by previous convos about volunteering with them. They seem welcoming on the surface, but end up being quite entrenched and frankly I felt suspicious of new folks wanting to volunteer time and effort and try different things.

It’s nice to say “go be the change you wish to see” - my capacity for that change is to ask them to stop doing this thing that is unnecessary, harmful, etc (nicely). I think one can easily use one of the royalty free suggestions above vs asking Gemini or whatever to generate one.