Ethical AI art generation? Adobe Firefly may be the answer
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The AI generation may be ethical -- but since this is Adobe we're talking about, literally no other part of it will be.
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I hate Adobe, but this is good. My main issue with AI "art" isn't fundamentally how it works or even how it will affect the industry, but how it is built on the backs of peoples' life work without their consent. If they're sincere about this, I see this as a big step, and makes me more interested in actually using the technology.
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"Ethical" and "Adobe" are not words one often sees used together. I may need a moment to process this.
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The Adobe Stock Contributor Agreement isn't at all clear about the use of contributor photos for this kind of thing. I expect backlash from stock photographers about the use of their images to train Adobe's AI model here, justified or not.
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I've been thinking a lot about AI created/assisted art lately. With modern specialized printers, you can print on canvas and create AI "paintings", and someone will probably adapt additive manufacturing to create the layering effect of oil and acrylic paintings. You may some day soon be able to purchase a Van Gogh reproduction, down to the color and brush strokes. With additive manufacturing, scupture is also not immune to this technology, though exceptionally large and/or complex sculptures with multiple media might be some ways off from reproductions. The point is though, the market for creative content, be it writing, images or art, will become saturated with high quality imitations and/or AI patterned products.
People like to make predictions, but I just have more (rhetorical) questions. Will this make fine art more accessible? WIl art's impact on society be diminished? Will the value of art in people's lives decrease... or increase? Will artists be even more unable to make a living in such a market than they already have difficulties doing? Will all of these innovations morph into just another toolset for artists or bring a flood of "art scriptkiddies" that will saturate the market, forcing out artists trying to make a living?
All rhetorical questions as I said. I'm not looking for answers, especially since there is a lot of evolution in these technologies that still has to play out, but it's worth keeping an eye on and spending time considering.
People like to make predictions, but I just have more (rhetorical) questions. Will this make fine art more accessible? WIl art's impact on society be diminished? Will the value of art in people's lives decrease... or increase? Will artists be even more unable to make a living in such a market than they already have difficulties doing? Will all of these innovations morph into just another toolset for artists or bring a flood of "art scriptkiddies" that will saturate the market, forcing out artists trying to make a living?
All rhetorical questions as I said. I'm not looking for answers, especially since there is a lot of evolution in these technologies that still has to play out, but it's worth keeping an eye on and spending time considering.
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Skeptical of the training but irregardless of my problems with Adobe this at least is a good thing to have.
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It's potentially a valid argument as the Agreement does not have a stipulation on using the images specifically for AI generation. Also the agreement identifies that the contributor still maintains all copyright etc, for the images.
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The basic problem, from my perspective, is economic. I'm not convinced that, in the long run, professional artists and their employers will actually be willing to pay for ethics as a line item. As one part of a broader creative suite, for which you're already paying anyway? Maybe. But nobody is going to spend money on an ethical model when the "unethical" model is just as good or better (because it has access to more training data), and is also cheaper, unless they have actual legal risks. If those legal risks materialize, then maybe this will be a different conversation, but I don't think anyone has plausibly alleged, before a court of competent jurisdiction, substantial similarity between an AI model's training data and outputs. If that never happens, then eventually people will stop worrying about it happening.
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As somebody who does a lot of layout stuff involving text + images (magazines, information material etc), I wonder if the next step will be to add AI generation to InDesign. "Use this text and these images. Double-page spread. Make the headline informative and not too click-baity. Appropriate sub-headings".
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I see two sections where the right to modify, transform, and create derivative works are explicitly called out so I think Adobe is quite fine in using stock photos within a training set per this agreement. They don't say "train AI models" specifically but that would be unnecessary given they claim rights to "developing new features and services" along side the more general "derivative works" license. We have not yet seen any indication that the use of copyrighted materials within a training set grants any license rights to those created or derivative works yet.
Whether contributors will be fine with this development and will want a future license to have options or be explicit about AI training is another story, but from a legal standpoint, I don't see much here to complain about since the original agreement is pretty permissive for what Adobe can do.
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Nor is there a carve out in copyright law to prevent using art as training material. I'm constantly amazed by how broad people mistakenly believe copyright protections to be.
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As other already noted, the agreement that Adobe has with their stock contributors is likely pretty murky regarding AI training. That said, Adobe should compensate those contributors in some manner for this use, and provide a means for them to opt out. This is really nothing different than the sources for the other AI models. It's only that Adobe has used its "own" pile of images that others have contributed to that stash. And Adobe certainly does not "own its own" stock photos.
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I expect a lot of photographers are not going to consider Adobe using all their Adobe Stock photos in the training set without explicit consent or without any way to opt out to be "ethical", regardless of legality.
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The thing that concerns me most about the agreement is payment -- "we may compensate you at our discretion" is a terrifying sentence to sign off on.
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Ditto. I tried Microsoft's AI layout software briefly and died a little (lot) inside.
I use a wide cross section of Adobe's apps for work. The demo video shows some intriguing new features, eg "text to vector", to be able to extract and edit features from the generated images. If they can help designers and artists use AI as an assistant, and/or speed up the creative process, people will lap it up. Like it or loathe it, Adobe has an iron grip on the creative market, and need to offer new features continuously to justify the subscription. So far, I feel they're doing it well enough to avoid needing to switch from software I've been using for 25 years. Muscle memory is a hell of a drug.
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Yeah, this is good. Firefly will generate images that doesn't violate copyrights by using openly licensed and public domain content.
But let's be certain about something: The words "Adobe" and "ethical" really don't belong together.
Edit: Damnit! Ninj'd by graylshaped!
But let's be certain about something: The words "Adobe" and "ethical" really don't belong together.
Edit: Damnit! Ninj'd by graylshaped!
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Andy and Roy: "This would make my process so much easier and faster! I see no problem here."
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Couldn't get pst the headline, yikes.
This is true for anything ever made. So It's a ridiculous statement.
This is true for anything ever made. So It's a ridiculous statement.
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Has anyone heard from Getty in the middle of all this? Seems like they'd want to come up with their own diffusion model based solely on images they have the rights to. They could follow the same tag model Adobe is, too. And they're another entity I avoid due to their other practices. But I do think this is a great opportunity for them.
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AI is not sentient. It requires input and creative decisions by humans to produce content.
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But if you accidentally do install it, John McAfee himself has a great little tutorial you can use to uninstall it:
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On another thread somewhere there was a comment about someone at a newspaper where they were downsizing (or thinking of downsizing) by 50% because the AI generative text could do a lot of the grunt work. So yeah, what you are suggesting is probably right around the corner.
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There’s no such thing as ethical AI image generation if it’s used to replace art made by a human. It’s bad for artists financially and for our culture
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Seems like a good start at least.
I am interested in the mentioned "do not use" tag, if that's like an Adobe specific thing or if there's like a robots.txt for anti-AI scanning of my personal site?
Or is there a good way to filter IPs or user-agents to block AI scanners?
I am interested in the mentioned "do not use" tag, if that's like an Adobe specific thing or if there's like a robots.txt for anti-AI scanning of my personal site?
Or is there a good way to filter IPs or user-agents to block AI scanners?
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Back several centuries there were arguments that painting was not "art" because it was a mechanical process and not pure thought.
I take photos and manipulate them by various programs. If I had a natural language interface to my editing programs whereby I could say "Take this image, focus interest on the feet by rule of thirds, and make it contrasty in the style of my other photos", is that still considered art? If so, how is that different from me saying "Make an image of some feet, focus interest on the feet by rule of thirds, and make it contrasty in the style of my other photos"?
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Do you consider James Michener's later published books to have been works of art he created? How about all the latter ghost written Tom Clancy spewings?
When one has a robot, whether a human lackey or machine tool, do the bulk of the work does call into question whether it is "art" or simply a mechanical effluence.
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As a former employee of Adobe I have my doubts. Not so much the "ethical" question, though that very much deserves discussion. More so whether they'll actually deliver something worth using at a meaningful price. I'm always very disappointed with how slow to innovate Adobe became and how many creative ideas just get lost and abandoned.
There's a commentary that could be made, perhaps, about when the finance people take over the software industry and then everything sucks. (Examples: Adobe's subscription model, Diablo Immortal, whatever else you want to name.) But I'm not sure I'm up for that depth of analysis. I just think this is Adobe trying to make a splashy press release during Summit and it will remain sound and fury, signifying nothing.
There's a commentary that could be made, perhaps, about when the finance people take over the software industry and then everything sucks. (Examples: Adobe's subscription model, Diablo Immortal, whatever else you want to name.) But I'm not sure I'm up for that depth of analysis. I just think this is Adobe trying to make a splashy press release during Summit and it will remain sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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Adobe's ethical approach will cost. The free ones will continue to enjoy use by non-professionals just farting around with images--or trying to do devious, misinformational stuff.
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Where exactly do you draw the line between what Tom Clancy is doing now, to what Alexandre Dumas did 150+ years ago? How much assistant input/ghost writing is allowed?
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