We have seen enough of artificial intelligence to know the term is, quite often, a misnomer. Publicly available AI programs still churn out hilariously telling moments of non-intelligence as concepts like ears, the correct number of fingers, a natural voice cadence or cohesive complex thought continue to evade them. It’s fun to find these limits. It’s fun to convince ourselves that the computers are still a long way from swallowing our culture whole.
It’s even more fun to do it through misshapen, unholy craft projects.
ChatGPT, a publicly available language-learning AI, was not designed to create things like crochet or knitting patterns. However, since such patterns are a form of language, it is theoretically possible for the program to create one. Many curious crafters have tried their hand at this, with increasingly absurd results.
In addition to being hilarious, this exercise poses a very fascinating quandary: What happens when you ask a program specifically trained on language to create something outside of that sphere?
Let’s crochet some ChatGPT-generated patterns and find out.
Before we begin …
A few notes on my methodology:
- For every crochet pattern I generated, I used the prompt “Create a crochet pattern for (blank).”
- I followed the crochet pattern exactly. Where there were inconsistencies in the pattern, like a miscount of stitches or a nonsensical instruction, I tried for the most good-faith solution.
- I chose objects and concepts that are not very common for crochet projects. There have been many issues raised about the extent to which programs like ChatGPT generate ideas already created by others, and I wanted to get as close to the bare heart of ChatGPT’s creativity as possible.
Test 1: ‘A banana’
This was supposed to be the control project: A simple object with a distinct shape that has been reiterated in innumerable crochet patterns across the internet.
That is exactly what ChatGPT gave me. Was it a banana? Not even in the barest of senses. Was it something an extremely limited intelligence system floating in binary goo would approximate as banana? Perhaps.
At first glance, ChatGPT’s crochet patterns look and read exactly like a crochet pattern. They even have chirpy little introductions, and the program can clearly mimic terms any crafter would recognize – such as “work a stitch.” It also knew how many 3D crochet projects start: As a circle.
However, once the instructions progressed past a few common beginning stitches, the project usually devolved into one of two things: spheres, or complete nonsense. Here, it knew enough to provide instructions for a banana and a peel. Everything after that was just spheres.
Test 2: ‘A weird little creature’
Since the banana radically recalibrated my understanding of ChatGPT’s crochet limits, I decided to dial it back. What would the program make of vague, qualitative language like “weird,” or “creature?”
You’ll never guess. (A sphere.)
This pattern resulted in a few different parts: A body (sphere), two tubular legs (long spheres), and two ears. It did not specify how to put them together, leaving the creator to determine their own level of “weird.”
While ChatGPT can create a linguistically cohesive pattern, it did significantly less well at specifying the “art” of it all, like how to assemble the work in any way that wouldn’t break the bounds of Euclidean geometry. In a traditional crochet pattern, instructions for assembly would note specific places and methods to attach pieces, along with photos or notes on particularly tricky steps.
“Feel free to experiment with different colors, yarn weights, and additional embellishments to make your creature unique,” the instructions concluded, after providing no guidance for assembly. “Happy crocheting!”
Test 3: ‘Baby Yoda’
I knew this one was going to be a problem the moment it generated a note saying to make “one ear green, and one ear tan.”
In the introduction to the instructions, ChatGPT did flex its knowledge that Baby Yoda is also known as “The Child.” It then proceeded to render The Child as, you guessed it, a series of spheres.
This is a good time to introduce a little more background about how ChatGPT works and why it struggles so much with things like crochet patterns.
