Knitting, AI and the Gotham Grannies

AI Image: The Poetry of Being on Instagram

At first glance knitting and AI (artificial intelligence) don't seem to have a lot in common.

Knitting is about a slower, mindful pace. The connection that comes when hands, brain and yarn intersect. The breathing and heart rate slow, the shoulders relax as you settle into a peaceful rhythm.

AI on the other hand is the preserve of tech bros, computer whizz kids. Something that involves banks of computers and more processing power than it took to put Neil Armstrong on the moon.

So what's the connection?

For a while now, knitters and crocheters have been using AI in the form of the ChatGPT program to attempt to write patterns - and mostly proving that whilst on the surface it is possible, for the most part my job as a designer is relatively safe for the time being.

AI generated images are another thing entirely though. And nothing has highlighted this more than the recent controversy surrounding the Gotham Grannies. In fact if you use social media at all you've almost certainly seen an image like this circulating recently.

This particular one shows an older woman, grinning cheekily into the camera while dressed up as batman - complete with knitted costume.

So far so good, but it's not real. The costume isn't knitted or crocheted. It doesn't even exist. It was made up by a computer that was told to create a batman costume that looks like it was handmade.

The story of the Gotham Grannies is real - and their story has been told by this writer and artist. Who is very clear about the origin of their work.

The problem comes when these images are used out of context and widely circulated as memes, jokes, social media content. They aren't real, but there is nothing about the image that flags it as false. It is literally the visual equivalent of fake news.

In a world where it's increasingly hard to determine the veracity of anything you see online, this just further muddies the waters.

What's real, what isn't and does it matter?

On a superficial level, probably not really. It gets shared for pure entertainment value and that's fine, I guess. But think a little deeper about the issue and suddenly things become a lot more concerning.

Imagine you are a hard pressed ad executive on a budget wanting to come up with a winning ad campaign. You want to have a character dressed up in a cute, visually appealing costume. Once upon a day you would have commissioned a designer or textile artist - or even a knitter - to design and create a costume.

But now, you can just hand over the job to a nifty bit of tech and hey pesto. In the space of an afternoon and for a whole lot fewer dollars you can have a selection of ad campaign ready images ready to go.

The designer or creative is no longer needed.

More to the point this increasingly blurs the boundaries between what is possible creatively and artistically and what isn't. I've already seen heated debates online about how these costumes were constructed. Crafters arguing endlessly among themselves about how such garments are constructed, when they aren't even real in the first place.

For too long we've been bombarded with images of photoshopped perfection. Being made to feel inferior in our appearance, our homes, our vacations and so many aspects of our daily lives. And now we face being subjected to photos of unattainable crafts too. How long until a well-meaning relative waves a photo of an AI generated sweater in our faces and asks for one 'just like this'.

Having said that - it seems that AI does have some way to go before it can convincingly create images that will stand up to further scrutiny. People who are experts in such things say that the giveaway with AI generated images of humans is always the hands. There's a reason that so many AI humans are wearing gloves. I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of this but I guess it makes sense given that even famous artists have sometimes struggle to depict hands accurately. They are complex, 3D and in the source pictures that AI draws on they are often holding on to other objects - making their reproduction very difficult. This article explains it really well if you are interested.

In addition, once you get past the most casual of cursory glances at this image it's clear that something is very wrong with the 'knitted' fabric. There's some weird blurring or distortion of the lines going on particularly in the lower half of the image that make it obvious that not all is as it seems. The problem of course is that so often we don't look. We scroll past, maybe tapping the share or retweet button without taking the time to stop and look properly.

If this incident has taught me anything it's that appearance isn't always clearcut. And if something looks too good, too clever, too wacky to be true - it might well not be.