An AI-Designed Horse Bag Is Destroying This Small But Passionate Community

It all started with a horse-shaped nylon bag.

Baggu, the hugely popular brand of reusable shopping bags, announced earlier this month that it would be launching a collaborative collection with New York-based brand Collina Strada. In the past, special edition designer releases have been successful for Baggu: a previous collaboration sold out in a few minutes of items arriving on the web. This new collection — with its colorful and dreamlike prints It is pony shaped bags, little legs and all — seemed designed to spark the same viral hype. Brands teased designs. Influencers posted unboxing videos. Fans were ready to shop.

But the day the bags and accessories went on sale, fans got more details about the designs: some of the prints were created using the AI ​​Midjourney image generator. On product pages, a short notice has been added:

Blue Thorns is an AI-conceptualized print from Collina Strada’s SS24 “Soft is Hard” collection. The team used Midjourney as a tool to remix old Collina prints and take them even further. After using Midjourney to mix two of their prints, their graphics team turned the concept into a repeat, inserting logos and adding new elements and layers to complete the print.

Some fans weren’t happy, to say the least. Comments on Instagram called the use of AI “weak,” “so disappointing,” and “inexcusable.” Some customers say that when they placed an order, they didn’t realize AI was involved in the design process. On TikTok, some customers vowed never to shop at Baggu again.

The most common complaints revolved around the “lack of transparency” in the use of AI. Buyers, it seems, wanted more warnings or more prominent disclaimers. Others have opposed collaboration on moral grounds, saying AI tools trained on other artists’ work without consent is theft. And finally, the environmental impact of generative AI is also a common concern, perhaps because Baggu touts its eco-friendly brand ethos. Baggu did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There’s also a gray area in the response to the collection: Collina Strada has used generative AI as a design tool before. The designer behind the brand, Hillary Taymour, has previously discussed her process using tools like Midjourney, describing to O Fashion Business the iterative process of repeatedly asking AI systems for their own work to see what the tool produces. Perhaps this collaboration suffered from a lack of communication with customers before launch – after all, the right framing is very important in marketing.

Other than the brief explanation, the Baggu website offers few details about the process of generating the AI ​​prints. In an email to On the edge, Collina Strada spokeswoman Lindsey Solomon noted that only two of the prints used AI — others, like “Sistine Tomato” print are made by “photography[ing] each element of printing and composition[ing] together, hand placing each rhinestone and tomato. The AI ​​prints, in turn, are based on results generated by feeding Midjourney images from Collina Strada’s previous work, essentially remixing the brand’s own designs. Is it still theft if your contributions are your own work? And what kind of freedom should artists have to experiment with these tools before it’s seen as a moral failing?

We are in a strange transition phase of AI. Tools like ChatGPT have been around for almost two years, and our online – and offline – spaces are flooded with synthetic content. Sometimes it’s fun; other times, the potential for harm and abuse is obvious. That’s why I was surprised when I saw the rapid spread of an AI image “All eyes on Rafah” This is perhaps the most viral piece of AI media yet – are we okay with AI or not? Who can use it and for what purpose?

This case of AI-designed reusable bags is far from the most pressing example of the tension between the future tech companies want and what everyone else imagines for our world. But it suggests a debate we will see more and more of, and raises questions about who owns what, who gets the credit, and what is fair. It seems like the answer at the moment is: it depends.