Today, it’s crochet patterns on Etsy. Tomorrow…???
A few excerpts:
An NBC News search for “crochet patterns” returned more than half a dozen storefronts with crochet pattern product listings that appear to feature dozens of AI-generated images. Etsy broadly allows AI-generated content, to the dismay of some sellers. However, Etsy requires sellers to accurately depict their products in listing photos. … Photoshop requires money, skill and time, while many AI generators are free and can turn a text prompt like “crochet Garfield” into an image in a few seconds.
“The pattern looks nothing like the picture that advertised the pattern,” a one-star review on the Garfield crochet pattern said. “The image is an AI-generated image and I will never purchase from this seller again.” … But while AI-generated art can be sold on a real T-shirt or as a print, the AI-generated images of crochet items identified by NBC News are never made into real products. In reviews across multiple storefronts displaying AI-generated crochet, dismayed buyers wrote what happened after they downloaded the patterns.“The first picture in the listing is what makes you want to buy the pattern, as it’s AI-generated,” a highland cow crochet pattern review said. “The pattern is easy to follow, but it doesn’t turn out like the picture which is very disappointing.”
I didn’t see anything specifically about AI in the policies.
I’m thinking it’s time that ALL platforms specifically add what it and isn’t ok for AI in their policies–even including Amazon, who is offering AI-assisted listing creation and updating as a Seller feature.
AI isn’t the problem, it’s people having not-as-described listings that’s the problem, whether AI is involved or not isn’t really relevant. Though the usage of AI has enabled people to create low effort listings which they don’t bother checking.
In the realm of selling crochet patterns, an AI-generated image of a final product that isn’t actually able to be created via crochet at all is a HUGE problem.
People bought the patterns expecting that it will guide them to making the finished object presented, when in fact the AI-generated image not only can not be recreated at all but definitely not via the pattern purchased.
In this case, the “AI-ness” of it is quite relevant. What a computer can render can certainly exceed what is actually possible with human hands.
Sadly enough, we puny humans increasingly place more faith upon fad and fashion than we do upon fundamentals.
Progress marches on - but We The People can correct a path leading - heedless and/or with reckless abandon - over this or that cliff merely to an unwelcome grave in this or that the abyss, should we care to.
It’s no different than if an artist created the image. Either way it’s an image and not a picture of a real product, which means there’s a high likelihood the real product will not actually look like it.
The problem isn’t the fact it’s AI generated, the problem is it’s not a real product picture. How it was generated isn’t really relevant. The rule should just be that the images have to be pictures of an actual product, not an artist’s rendition, not an AI generated image, not an image stolen from a competitor’s product that you can’t recreate yourself.
That’s the rule on Amazon, isn’t it? People break it all the time. Personally, I take photos because I don’t want anyone returning because it doesn’t look like the image.
People who review often say how much it looks like the image.
I’m not sure what the rules are, but logic would say for handmade items that actual pictures are important since people are buying it for the detail. There’s a lot of trash sellers out there though, and the handmade category is no different in that aspect. Thing is, high returns don’t generally cost the platform much since the costs fall on the seller, and the buyer while annoyed did get a refund so they aren’t too pissed either, so they’re not that incentivized to crack down on trash sellers with a high return rate because they’re using fake product pictures.
Hmm, maybe not if the artist skillfully used CAD tech to do so, but most artist renderings are obviously not “real,” even to the untrained, average consumer eye.
It’s an evolutionary skill, built into our genetic fabric, to be able to tell what’s real from what isn’t.
The problem with AI-generated images versus most “artist renderings” is that AI is much more difficult for the average consumer to detect.
It offers unique challenges, exactly when it is intended to expertly mimic reality–not to be a standalone creation, as in this intentional case of fraud.
As the article noted, even CAD tech requires human money, time, and skill, that AI does not.
Tomorrow…???