That AI leaves us without jobs It is one of the great concerns of recent years. It is not yet clear what it will be the impact of AI on the labor marketWhat we do know is that There are people doing business taking advantage of generative AI. This is what’s happening on Etsy, where there is an overwhelming amount of “custom art” for sale that is actually made with AI.
what’s happening. Etsy is the platform for artists par excellence. Here we can order a personalized portrait of our pet or family in a multitude of styles. Everything normal, except that many of the results if we search for “custom portrait” They are images made by AI.
If we look for specific styles that have recently gone viral such as Ghibli, anime or Pixar, AI dominates practically everything. Also, some are not exactly cheap, like this Ghibli style portrait which costs almost 20 euros in digital format. If we want to print it it goes up to more than 46 euros.
Why is it important. AI is here to stay and The debate about whether we can consider it art is there. The problem is that, at least for now, the lack of transparency is flagrant. I’ve searched for these types of “custom portraits” on Etsy and have only found a couple of sellers that mentioned the use of AI in the creative process, The rest is not only that they don’t mention it, it’s that they say things like “Original work of art” or “I can’t wait to draw you.”
There is a clear intention to hide the use of generative AI. The objective is obvious: to capture an audience that does not know how AI tools work and to whom paying 20 euros for a “personalized portrait” seems like a more than reasonable price.
Shall we tell them?
AI for everything. Not only do they make the items with AI, there are stores that seem to be managed entirely by one. Some buyers say they felt like they were talking to an AI, which they probably did. There are stores where all the titles, descriptions and comments in response to reviews are clearly made with AI. In fact, Etsy itself launched a few months ago a tool to create titles using artificial intelligence.
When you upload an article you can mark that it is made with AI.
What Etsy says. Despite the rejection from a large part of the communitythe platform allows the sale of items generated with AI. According to the standards that were published in 2024Etsy considers that the seller continues to provide creativity when designing the prompt, but yes: “Sellers must indicate in the description of their listing if an item has been created with the use of AI.” However, given the volume of unlabeled AI-generated products, it seems they are quite lax about this.
More deceptions. In addition to selling AI-generated images by passing them off as handmade, there are other uses of AI to boost sales. We already saw it with the impossible to sew crochet patternsthere are sellers using AI images to promote your products (real) and we have also found it in some Amazon items; It’s the classic “what you ask for vs what you get.” And there is still more. At Idealista they are also using AI in house sale ads “so you can see how it would look renovated.”
Vertiginous. At the beginning of the year we talked about the junk AI that was filling Instagram and TikTok; They were very disturbing videos, but it was very evident that they were made with AI. The examples we have given are also easy to detect for a trained eye, but the advances are dizzying. Today, distinguish what is real and what is not practically impossible. Hoaxes like Etsy’s “AI art” will be an anecdote compared to what is to come.
Image | Etsy
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