The AI Scams Infiltrating The Knitting And Crochet World – And How To Spot Them

Source: ZDNet, David Gewirtz, Senior Contributing Editor
Photo: adventtr/Getty Images

AI can create unexpected problems for crafters. Here’s what to watch out for, and why it matters even if you don’t crochet.

I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anyone that scammers and spammers would embrace AI. It’s a technology almost tailor-made to force-multiply reprehensible activity. What did come as a surprise is that they managed to use AI to scam crafters and makers — and it’s probably only going to get worse.

Searches on Etsy for pattern, plan, and recipe each return 1,000+ results. All of these are digital documents that AIs can produce. But it’s not just fake AI documents that might be for sale on Etsy. We all know that spammers flood the internet with garbage sites that return in searches, used as link farms and to provide SEO juice to other scammy sites. In this article, I’ll show you how unknowingly downloading AI-generated garbage can cause you frustration and cost you money.

As one example, we’ll look at the yarn crafts of knitting and crochet. But this problem could just as easily haunt folks using recipes when cooking or baking. There are a ton of other hobbies, crafts, and activities that rely on sequences of written instructions, all of which could possibly be corrupted by the scams I’ll show you.

Did you know hand-made knitting and crochet crafts have something in common with smartphone apps and 3D printers? That’s right: the short answer is they use programming code. Let’s deconstruct the relationships between crafting and coding — and then I’ll provide some important lessons for everyone on how to spot some AI-generated scams.

Knitting and crochet patterns are pretty much code

My wife loves to knit and crochet — two different crafts that use yarn to create clothing, accessories, toys, and home decor items. Both essentially knot or merge yarn to create material that can then be used to make sweaters, scarves, hats, and more.

Most crafters use patterns. Here’s a snippet of a pattern created by crochet designer and influencer Elise Rose, who we’ll return to later because her YouTube video explains the AI-scamming issue in detail:

sl st to the ch 2 space from previous round, ch 3, dc, tr, 2 dc, hdc, all in the ch 2 space, ch 1. SPsc into the ch 1 space directly below from Round 1, ch 1, SPsc into the next ch 1 space directly below from Round 1, ch 1 [hdc, 2 dc, tr, 2dc, hdc, ch 1, into the ch 2 space from Round 2, SPsc into the ch 1 space directly below from Round 1, ch 1, SPsc into the ch 1 space directly below from Round 1, ch 1] 4 times (total of 5 points), in the same ch 2 space we began our work for this round, hdc, sl st to the top of ch 3 to close round, fasten off and weave in end

Look at that. That’s code. It provides instructions to perform certain stitches for a certain number of steps, then to switch to a different set of stitches for another set of steps. Knitting, while a different craft, also has steps that are, basically, lines of code.

Similarly, 3D printing uses something called G-code. A designer creates a virtual object in a computer-aided design (CAD) tool like Fusion 360, and then a slicer converts the design into G-code that tells the 3D printer where to put the print head, what temperature to heat it to, and where to move it next. The result is a physical object.

Functionally, people who knit and crochet are like machines that interpret knitting and crochet patterns — their version of G-code — and turn those codes into physical objects. I mean, the analogy is tight. 3D printers take spools of plastic filament and create physical objects. Knit and crochet craftspeople take skeins of yarn and create physical objects.

Knitting and crochet are lucrative industries

According to a 2016 study by the Association for Creative Industries and MaritzCX, a customer experience and market research company now part of InMoment (another company that deals with customer relations), 63% of US households engaged in a craft or hobby in 2016 (the most recent survey I could find on this market), and spent almost $44 billion.

A quarter of US households participated in knitting and crocheting during that time, or roughly 28.8 million households. The average knitter or crochet crafter, according to the study, spent an average of $20.57 per month, making knitting and crochet in the US a $2.79 billion market annually back in 2016.

If millions of people each spend about $250 a year on a craft, that’s a big money-making opportunity.

Much of that spending (at least for knitting and crochet) goes into buying yarn and knitting supplies and gadgets. But there’s another big area where crafters spend cash: patterns, or the aforementioned instructions (the code) for making knitted or crocheted objects.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-ai-scams-are-infiltrating-the-knitting-and-crochet-world