A yarn-woven Garfield, a highland cow and a baby dragon are just some of the cute plush items displayed in the Etsy stores of crochet-pattern merchants. But shoppers at the online store, which specializes in handmade, vintage and unique goods, say the polished final products that appear in the Etsy images aren’t anything like the final products made with the patterns, and that they think the images might be made with artificial intelligence.
“We want our buyers to know we have their backs — so in the rare case that a shopper receives an item that does not match the listing image or description, they can open a case and receive a full refund through our Purchase Protection Program,” Etsy said in a statement provided to NBC News.
AI image generators are free to use and available from major social media platforms, like Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram and its Imagine AI generator tool. With text inputs like “crochet baby yoda in a forest,” “simple crochet highland cow,” and “crochet cute fox,” NBC News was able to make near-replications of some of the pattern images on Etsy. On the left, an image used to advertise a crochet pattern on Etsy for a store that is no longer present on Etsy.
Part of the problem is that the crochet images that appear to be AI-generated look great to the unassuming eye, leading to the products becoming popular and being listed at the top of Etsy search results for “crochet patterns.” Some of the stores reviewed by NBC News had hundreds or even thousands of sales.
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