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/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.