I have long been worried about the rise of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its potential for harm and the fact that it is based on theft.

Whilst it might seem innocent and fun to share AI images of amazing looking flowers or cute animals on social media what you're doing is helping to train it to be better.

This is now already coming to bite us beaders with an overload of fake beading books now available whose sole purpose is to scam you out of your money for bad quality content. And if we let it continue then it's use in creating fake medical research (here and here) will only grow with horrifying implications.

This article focuses on needlework and this one on quilting but but the details in both apply to the beading world so please read them and educate yourself - and most of all stop sharing AI images.

2 weeks ago I looked on Amazon and found so many AI generated books on Kumihimo I was horrified.

Today I looked on Amazon and there were 50+ AI generated books on beading- all released since August.

Each one has made-up content with a computer generated image on the cover and its contents will be nonsense cobbled together by a computer based on what it has stolen from other books and website. Please think before you purchase to save yourself from being scammed. There are so many clues if you look, some things you can look for are:

• Look at the cover:
  Does the photo even show what it says the book is about? Ie does it say it's about loom work but have a strung necklace, or does it say it's about peyote stitch but with a bead embroidered cuff.
• Can you even see the detail of the beads?
• Does the piece even look possible to make?
• Do the beads magically change from one stitch to another?
• Is the description vague and doesn't give details or doesn't quite read right?
• Does it not show any of the content?
• Have you heard of the author? This might not always be the case but click on their name to see what else they've written (you may find it's none or 100s, and if they have written hundreds of other books think about whether that's actually possible). If you're not sure google the name or search for them on Facebook
• Is the book very cheap? A real book with real content cannot be beaded, written, diagrammed, photographed, laid -out and printed and then sold for £6.95. But a book which took seconds to make with I can be so that's a big clue
• You can also search the ISBN number (a unique number each book has) to see if it's fake or stolen from another book
• If it doesn't feel right remember what we were always told… if it seems too good to be true then it is!
• Have a look at reviews - did someone buy it and let you know how bad it is in the review?

And if you do end up buying one of these books then shout about it! to help stop the rise of this and to protect your fellow beaders & crafters

• Complain to Amazon!
• Leave a bad review!

This will help stop others from being scammed and protect your fellow beader.

These people are trying to scam beaders and we need to be proactive and vocal to stamp it out.

So please stop sharing AI images.

As I said it seems harmless but all you're doing is training the systems to produce better images which will only help scammers.

AI cannot work without stealing from others and using it and sharing AI images will just lead to more people being mislead & scammed.