Ethical AI art generation? Adobe Firefly may be the answer

Adobe trained new AI generator on Adobe Stock, licensed content, public domain.

See full article...

 

[graylshaped]

"Ethical" and "Adobe" are not words one often sees used together. I may need a moment to process this.

 

[graylshaped]

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"?

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.

 

[graylshaped]

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.

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.

 

[graylshaped]

Given that one of art's attributes is (from Art)



Then your negative thoughts, emotions and beliefs are certainly being stimulated by the works that you mention. So yes, they are all art. However, it is art you disagree with.

Not at all. I respond to the work of an artist. Mass-produced hotel pictures rarely provoke such a reaction.

It is the difference between having the work of an experienced cabinetmaker and an IKEA piece. Both serve a purpose. Both types of furniture are prominent in my home, as are original paintings, lithographs, and framed 100-year-old original fruit crate labels, along with hand-crafted ceramics, cheap modern bowls and glasses from Costco, and forty year-old Fiestaware.

I am happy to react to a piece enabled by well-considered machine-learning. The "artist" in such cases is the machine, I am sorry to say, absent an indication of not only prompts, but editing, re-working, and touch-up by the purported artist.

 

[graylshaped]

Eh, if the art someone can produce can be simply replaced by a robot then I’m not sure they were much of an artist to begin with.

The good artists will still get paid and if they’re smart they will use AI for inspiration or to do more tedious or labor intensive parts of their job. AI might put the mediocre ones out of a job though.

I heart pithy, and you captured my POV on this better than I was able to do, in far fewer words. Thanks.

 

[graylshaped]

Ah yes, much the same way that music is now pointless because someone invented a synthesiser of instruments. Damn flood of mediocrity from those people who can’t even play a piano, or a guitar, or drums, or..

Maybe, just maybe; art will be different. And that’s fine - no actually that’s exciting - to me.

Synthesizers are instruments. They take active human input at all times.

Analogy fail.

 

[graylshaped]

For those of you concerned about AI art dominating the industry, this might give some comfort, if you haven't seen it. Bear in mind that a lot of questions remain and this is far from definitive, but I find it very interesting. If you can't copyright an image from an AI, that would dramatically reduce the appeal in today's IP-driven creative industry. The argument is interesting too, although I'm skeptical that it will hold up under closer scrutiny.


I've said this before, but I'll reiterate: I fail to see any way that these "AIs" are actually doing the same thing as human minds when "learning." To be sure, I am far from an expert on the brain. But I don't think this is an assumption we can make. Just because we call it "learning" does not at all mean it's analogous to human learning. Based on what knowledge I have, the two appear very different.

Of course, this doesn't really sway the verdict either direction, I'm just tired of hearing this argument.


I've seen this sort of negativity toward artists a lot lately. Where the heck did it come from? Are we really going to cast the friggen artists as the bad guys here? We don't even know if there are any bad guys.

There aren't bad guys, at this point. There are free-loaders, who are teaching machines to ape other peoples' work on a massive scale, without the right holders' permission or knowledge.

It would be nice if we had a functional Congress who could see and address this in a reponsible manner that allows development of the tech while protecting those holding rights; having said that, it is really an international issue. The tech is moving very, very fast here.

 

[graylshaped]

google search "fan art". Many artists create art based on other people's art.

Thats not how they work. They train off the image, they aren't using the actual art images and mashing them together. What they create is completely original.

No, because they aren't using the art. Its like listening to a song and deciding you want to make music that sound like that.

They train off the art but they aren't using the art? They tell the machine "do it like this," but that isn't using the unlicensed art?

Reconcile that, please.

 

[graylshaped]

I can train off the art same as the AI does. I can try and paint something in the style of Boris Vallejo, or Picasso, or a random person on DeviantArt. So I do my painting and create an original work based on their style. But I don't owe them anything, I don't have to ask permission. I don't need a license to learn from their style.

Why does the AI need a license to learn but I don't?

Because you aren't a fucking machine that can replicate this style ad infinitum. Plus, you probably do it poorly.

This isn't hard, dude.

 

[graylshaped]

So your main issue has to do with volume of production. I see. I could argue against the printing press with that kind of reasoning. A clarke or scribe can only copy a work so quickly whereas a press can create thousands of them in the same amount of time.

I personally think that AI art needs to be correctly sourced so the viewer knows what they're looking at. Perhaps an AI mark similar to a copyright mark.

My main issue is with the role of the artist in creating the work. Mass reproduction thereafter cheapens it further.


Yes. Sourcing is where we have common ground, plus some sort of "we faked this" delineation.

 

[graylshaped]

My main issue is with the role of the artist in creating the work. Mass reproduction thereafter cheapens it further.

Keep digging, son.

your argument is that mass reproduction is bad? Are you anti-printers and the copy/paste function of computers?

Don't be dumb.

 

[graylshaped]

By extension of that thinking an artist cannot sell copies of their own work, then.

Nope. Not my argument.

Try again to support the position that a bot is an artist.

 

[graylshaped]

I'm not sure this philosophy of art position is going to work when it comes to these systems in the real world, but I appreciate the effort at least.

He's correct. The paintbrush is not the artist.

 

[graylshaped]

You specifically said mass reproduction diminishes the work. Which means producing copies of the same work. Like making prints of a painting or copies of a book. What you seem to really mean is mass production of distinct AI images based on random prompts from users, and that's different.

Your contention takes my statement out of context. What I said was that using automated tools or lackeys to produce work, and THEN subjecting it to mass reproduction diminishes the role of a so-called artist. And I stand by that statement, and shake my fist at clouds.

And that applies to professionals or to hobbyists. Again, the involvement of the tool-user at each step, with active engagement and editing and re-direction, is the bright line I draw. Offering a prompt and taking the end result as presented doesn't cross that line.

Workman-like product can be produced with that easy approach, and I am happy to accept it as craft, but not as art.

 

[graylshaped]

As far as the output of AI image generation is concerned my personal feeling is that it shouldn't be subject to copyright protection unless it's had substantial human modification. Apparently the Copyright Office feels the same way.

To me art requires intent and the generator doesn't have intent. It has a model for interpreting written prompts. It's a more complicated, automated paintbrush.

It seems we are more or less in alignment on this contentious issue.

 

[graylshaped]

I think we can argue whether or not it's art all we want, but critically, the real argument is whether or not it was created by someone. I'd argue no. In the same way a monkey taking a picture shouldn't give the man who owned the camera a copyright on that photo (nor the monkey, unless the monkey asks for it), neither should any "artist" get credit for telling an AI to make something, and then the AI makes it. They get, at BEST, copyright over the specific text they typed into the prompt. Who does it belong to? I'd say it's best if art generated by AI belongs to no one at all, unless the AI asks.

I'll accept that.

A floating grocery bag can be beautiful in its way (I think that was from American Beauty). I watched a squirrel dart around a tree yesterday, and enjoyed it immensely, even though it was probably the same squirrel who crept onto my patio and ate my entire basil plant (I read peppers discourage them, and will pick up a few to scatter among the herbs).

Those are not art, yet are thoroughly enjoyable for the acts of the universe that they are.

 

[graylshaped]

Why is Adobe unethical?

That is an exercise for the student.