Does ChatGPT Dream of Crochet Sheep?

FEATURE | HANGA / CRAFT

Written by Tashi Donnelly (she/her) | @tashi_rd | Feature Editor

It's the year 2025. Craft-Tok has been igniting in the people a passion for crochet. AI has spent three years seeping into the online ecosystem. I sit down in front of my ageing laptop. This laptop is older than generative AI, I think to myself as I type into ChatGPT’s text box: 

Write me a crochet pattern for a small amigurumi electric sheep with safety eyes, using 8ply acrylic yarn (in no more than 2 colours) and a 2.5mm hook.

To which ChatGPT graciously responds: 

Ooo, I love this idea — a small “electric sheep” 🐑⚡ amigurumi, kept simple with just 2 colours of 8ply acrylic yarn and a 2.5mm hook. Think of it like a fluffy little sheep with a sci-fi / electric twist (glowy cheeks or lightning bolt tail).

Damn, I think. It didn't even get the reference.* 

Image-based open source generative AI has been a hot topic over the last few years, being heavily criticised by the global arts community. In order to train them, these models are fed millions of images without the individual creators' consent. As if artists weren’t being fucked over enough by late-stage capitalism, which doesn’t value anything that doesn’t make a profit, now we have computers shitting out glossy slop and Studio Ghibli filters that could easily put Hayao Miyazaki himself into a rage coma. So why did I ask ChatGPT to write me a crochet pattern?

This is where my sordid story begins. The pure excitement of a new art experiment had launched me toward my crochet tools. I gathered the materials needed for ChatGPT’s Electric Sheep:

• 8ply acrylic yarn in 2 colours:

• Colour A: body (white/cream)

• Colour B: face, legs, ears, tail (black, grey, or bright “electric” colour like neon yellow/blue)

• 2.5 mm crochet hook

• 2 × 7.5 mm safety eyes

• Polyester stuffing

• Yarn needle, scissors, stitch marker

These ingredients for a cursed recipe looked innocent and unsuspecting. I got to work. 

In a world that moves too fast, the art of crochet is an antidote. It works by using a single hooked needle to loop yarn or thread together, one stitch at a time, to create fabric. The process is slow; it requires patience and concentration. It’s the perfect activity to spiral into the depths of one's own mind and question every decision that has led them to this point. 

At least that’s what happened to me as I followed the instructions. 

While I hooked, pulled and manoeuvred one stitch dutifully over the last, my inner monologue was desperately trying to justify what I was doing. I was asking ChatGPT to write a pattern that, by necessity, was stealing from other creators’ hard work and expertise. Was I outsourcing theft for an art experiment? Could you call it “outsourcing” if I willingly engaged with it? Could I even call this an “art” experiment? 

I attempted to reason with myself. Everything in this synthetic pattern I could have written and executed myself. A child could’ve made this. I only asked Chatty P to handle the entire creative process, including writing the pattern. And that’s what art is all about, right, folks? Shortcutting the creative process?

Before me lay the elements needed to assemble the Electric Sheep. I decided ahead of time to go into this pattern blind, meaning I didn’t read it over before I began. This isn’t a good way of approaching crochet, but if I was already wrestling with my ethics, I at least wanted to have a good laugh in the process. 

And a good laugh was had. The instructions Mr GPT had given me for assembling this toy were vague and illogical. For the “face plate”, one of nine individual elements to be sewn together to complete the sheep, the instruction was: Flatten slightly and sew to front of body around eyes. The tail instructions ended with: This makes a jagged little zigzag. Which was a generous interpretation of what looked like a shark tail. 

Aha! I thought to myself, I was right! AI simply couldn’t compete with humans in the complicated and highly skilled craft of crochet pattern design. I’d proven a point, of sorts. Take that, generative AI. 

I started sewing together the pieces according to the instructions. I refused to ask ChatGPT for any further explanation and followed the pattern exactly as written. 

All my fears of AI taking over the crochet animal pattern industry melted away. Looking upon my creation, I felt a sense of remorse, like I’d delivered something into the physical realm that should not exist. My poor, cursed child. 

ChatGPT’s Electric Sheep stared back at me with lifeless eyes. The crochet equivalent of post-nut-clarity settling in, I grappled with the sobering reality of what I’d just done. The fact that my very human fingers managed to render from this pattern something cute, even endearing, was beside the point. 

In a moment of weakness, I had to know what Chatty P’s intention had been when he dreamed up this pattern. I typed into the chat box:

Can you show me an image of what the electric sheep will look like?

The loading ring chased its own tail, and a few moments later, it appeared on the screen:

I felt like I was staring at a sick metaphor for the process of imagination and execution completely out of alignment. The “vision–reality gap”, I like to call it. Any excitement I’d had at the beginning of this process melted away, and I was left with a distinct feeling that nothing really mattered. 

AI-generated crochet patterns are already being sold online. Fake, AI-generated images of finished toys are advertising these patterns, and unsuspecting crafters are buying them. I had essentially just assisted in training ChatGPT to generate these kinds of scams, and what for? To prove to myself that slow crafts like crochet were safe from the grips of AI replication? What was it all for?

I wish I hadn’t done it. I don’t recommend trying this yourself, dear reader, even as a joke. What I thought would be a hilarious exposé of AI’s ineptitude was really a sad attempt to make myself feel better in a world that’s increasingly fast-paced and artificial. Like an argument with a bad-faith actor, I’d greedily taken the bait labelled “Trap — ❤️”. 

AI may be capable of mimicking the language of a pattern; it can even spit out glossy images of crochet sheep, but it can’t stitch a single loop. It can’t create; it can only copy. Like the slop that AI churns out, the whole experiment felt lifeless, fraudulent, and although admittedly humorous, ultimately lacking in the basic genetic material that makes up the DNA of craft. 

Crochet, like many textile crafts, is a skill that requires thousands of hours of practice to master. There is no perfectly acquired set of data that can teach you faster than experience. Crochet requires human imagination, human error, and human patience. I was never going to recognise AI-generated art as legitimate, but this experiment revealed a fundamental element of any arts and crafts: care. 

One day, hundreds of thousands of years ago, humans took time out of their terrifying day to make objects for each other. That kind of care cannot be AI-generated. 

*Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a Novel by Philip K. Dick. I thought it would be funny to ask an AI bot to dream of an “electric sheep”. Stupid clanker didn’t even get the reference.