7 ms·

Procreate defies AI trend, pledges "no generative AI" in its illustration app

65 points by tannhaeuser 2y ago

danpalmer 2y ago
I think this is the wrong promise. Photoshop has had "generative AI" in it for many years and no one really had a problem with it, and there are many similar features that would make sense in Procreate. I would imagine there will be customer demand for them to go back on this, which puts them in an awkward position of either reneging on a promise or losing customers. What I imagine Procreate really want to express is their dedication to art and artists, which are certainly threatened by aspects of the current generative AI wave. I think they could have done this without promising no generative AI features. Promising to focus on artists, to not use creations for training, not partnering with companies who aren't respecting artists rights, all would have gone some way towards this.
- bugglebeetle 2y ago
  Considering that Procreate is overwhelmingly loved by artists while Adobe is at best seen as a necessary evil (and at worst bloatware owned by malevolent rentiers), I think the former has a better handle on their audience.
  - bornfreddy 2y ago
    And yet: > "Now thats the way to send a message. Now if only you guys could get a full power competitor to [Photoshop] on desktop with plugin support. Until someone can build a real competitor to high level [Photoshop] use, I'm stuck with it." I think Photoshop will do just fine.
    - mattl 2y ago
      Sure. Just as McDonald’s will do just fine.
    - bugglebeetle 2y ago
      No one argued otherwise? This is irrelevant. My point was that Procreate is still in phase where they need to know their users and deliver what they want, vs. Adobe, who has used all kinds of lock-in and underhanded tactics to back users into a corner and say, “what the fuck you gonna do about it?” The latter is certainly a way a lot of people make money, but is not especially laudable or, as the parent argued, a contrasting route that Procreate could go down and be successful.
    - maxbond 2y ago
      That comment would seem to illustrate GP's point.
- FridgeSeal 2y ago
  Why should procreate be obliged to put generative models in? If they don’t want to, and their customers evidently agree, isn’t that sufficient? Your argument seems to frame it as them “fundamentally needing” , or are in some way obliged to have that feature, when no such evidence exists for that.
  - danpalmer 2y ago
    My point is not that they fundamentally need it, but more that they are over-reacting to the current hype cycle. 5 years ago no one considered Photoshop's generative fill to be problematic, and I would have expected it to be on the long term roadmap of any similar piece of software. It was a widely appreciated feature that no one really felt was changing art. Even if the whole current generative AI trend disappears entirely, that's still a feature customers wanted before, and there's no reason to think they wouldn't still want it. And that's assuming nothing comes of the current trend. I would imagine the opposite, that at least one or two limited use-cases will be found for things similar to generative fill, that in years time will be regarded as normal, not as problematic. Now if Procreate wants to position themselves as "low tech", that's a different thing, and they're free to do so, but looking at their product it doesn't seem that they're going for "low tech" in any other way.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      I think "no one" is overstating it, there are some who object to this sort of thing, the same way some people object to the use of autotune in popular music. But agreed, most people don't know/don't care, especially on the consumer side of the equation.
    - 112233 2y ago
      If it helps think about AI as meat (or sugar). You put "only locally grown beef^W AI", or "does not contain any meat^W genAI" not because you are low tech, but because these are your customer preferences Nowhere do they talk of shunning all maachine learning. Current generative models are not exactly a technological product.
  - Ferret7446 2y ago
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  Spot healing and content aware patch is not generative fill, its just cloning adjacent pixels - what AI are you referring to that's been there for years?
  - deafpolygon 2y ago
    generative AI
- bigboy12 2y ago
  I agree 100%. Ai is just a New amazing tool.
- maxbond 2y ago
  You're using a different definition of AI than Procreate is. You can tell because no one has ever said generative fill was "founded on theft" (a statement you don't have to agree with to acknowledge the point). So you and Procreate are talking across purposes.
  - tensor 2y ago
    Generative AI has a very specific meaning, it's not something that's "up for debate." That the general public has taken a trade term and abused it is not a reason to abandon the actual meaning among practitioners. Generative AI is AI that can generate examples from learned models. This is opposed to discriminating AI which given an answer can tell you if it's correct. This actually matters because in fact there are many types of gen AI, the vast majority not being image nor large language models. "Founded on theft" is nonsensical moralizing that doesn't help anyone with anything, and definitely doesn't help define any sort of sensible AI regulation.
    - maxbond 2y ago
      Sometimes people use terms in a way we don't agree with, but it doesn't give us license to misinterpret their meaning in doing so. (Please note I made no claim here about whether or not AI is "founded on theft" and only that Procreate used that turn of phrase.)
      - tensor 2y ago
        If they have license to misrepresent and abuse a term, users of that term absolutely have license to correct them. Being ignorant does not somehow put you above criticism or correction.
        maxbond 2y ago
        I'm not saying there's no license to correct them, but that the substance of a disagreement is unlikely to be about definitions (and wasn't in this case). I think arguing about what terms mean is largely a distraction. All words are made up, the right definition is the one that serves the discussion you're having at any given moment. Letting your interlocutor pick their own terms is a free way to extend charity and aid mutual understanding. If you're talking to someone, that means meeting in the middle because it goes both ways. If you're reading or discussing a document and the author isn't around, that means adopting the author's terminology, because there isn't really an alternative.
- m463 2y ago
  Isn't there a distinction here? You can use AI models to help create content. What about something like object selection or object removal? But generative AI would base the art itself on AI training on someone's work on learning their style.
- glimshe 2y ago
  I know professional artists who have made use of Photoshop's generative AI for years in photo retouching scenarios. They are great artists but find no reason to waste time and money doing tedious generative tasks themselves.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  The “generative AI” that has been in PS for years is nothing like today’s LLM based gen AI tools such as sending Midjourney or Firefly.
echelon 2y ago
There are a lot of artists that hate AI and hate that it is trained on their work, and this is understandable. But it's becoming apparent that a not insignificant segment of the "antis" are actually comprised of non-artists who enjoy the messaging. If you follow Twitter drama or r/ArtistHate and r/AIWars, you'll see that a number of non-artists are stirring up anti-AI drama and gatekeeping a community they don't even belong to (yet). It's wild to see. They've been caught using AI to create art, then using AI to rip off that art with sock puppets, then posting complaints about it. On the flip side, I've met a lot of VFX artists that are using Comfy on the regular now as a part of their process. They love it. A lot of this "no-AI" marketing is catering to this "anti" movement. I suspect they wouldn't want software with "no algorithms", though. And as more artists come to use AI in their work, I believe that's where the argument will shift: that generative AI is just another tool in the artist's tool box.
- xwolfi 2y ago
  There is no AI, there s nothing intelligent in these things. Just call it a complex algorithm that some people feel are useless and expensive to run.
  - Kiro 2y ago
    How is that relevant to the comment you're replying to? Strange choice for a generic rant against the term.
- protocolture 2y ago
  Thats correct. I see lots of tired old arguments drawn out by people in any art adjacent community whenever it is mentioned. Mostly from non users of AI and non artists (AI friendly or not) The only legit argument seems to be that AI has empowered scores of low quality submissions to various places. The issue being is that instead of asking low quality submissions to go away, they take angry anti AI stances. The problem as its been put over and over again is that branding things as AI is good for initial funding but bad for the actual implementation.
poorinterview 2y ago
This is so shortsighted. GenAI has dramatically increased access to creative expression for likely tens of millions of people. It shouldn't be shunned, but rather used as a gateway to developing a deeper and more expressive skillset. They're shooting themselves in the foot. EDIT: What's with the downvotes? Other "pro-genAI" comments are getting downvoted too. How is it that a community of builders and hackers are so against this?
- bugglebeetle 2y ago
  > dramatically increased access to creative expression for likely tens of millions of people This is like saying keyboards suddenly made tens of millions of people novelists and shows deep confusion about what constitutes creative expression.
  - poorinterview 2y ago
    Yes, the keyboard likely increased access to expression. I can type more at pace with my thoughts than I can write, and for far longer. And something as little as modifying a meme is a form of creative expression.
    - maxbond 2y ago
      Have you ever stared at a blank page (canvas, editor widow, ...) and wanted very badly to put something there but been unable to do so? Is there a technological tool[1] which would've solved that problem? [1] Technological as opposed to, say, a mindfulness technique, which some would describe as a tool.
  - protocolture 2y ago
    Nah the commenter you are responding to is correct. I dont share any of my content with people. I dont think its any good. But I can sit down with 3 AI's and bash out a story that I enjoy, that I largely controlled the creation of. Heck you can do it in multiple ways. I can have NovelAI fix the rough edges of my writing. I can have ChatGPT use a format like Lester Dents and simply ask me for the creative bits in between. I can ask it to help me follow a formal novel outline process. Years ago I wanted to commission some art from a Deviant Art account. I waited 3 weeks for the response that they didnt have the time and suggested other people. I am not saying AI should replace that bloke, and it hasnt he now has a steady high paying gig, but the time for me to go from brainfart to execution has drastically decreased. The creative input I have in the process hasn't changed. Its all critique and develop right. Heck most tools let me highlight the problem and rework just that part of the image. Ultimately I enjoy it as creativity. Even if people look down their nose at it, its working the same muscles just faster.
xiphias2 2y ago
When a CEO hates a technology it's probably because it leapedfrogged his app and he's already seeing decreasing revenue growth.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] Lots of discussion 2 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41295957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41295957

65 points by tannhaeuser 2y ago

I think this is the wrong promise. Photoshop has had "generative AI" in it for many years and no one really had a problem with it, and there are many similar features that would make sense in Procreate. I would imagine there will be customer demand for them to go back on this, which puts them in an awkward position of either reneging on a promise or losing customers. What I imagine Procreate really want to express is their dedication to art and artists, which are certainly threatened by aspects of the current generative AI wave. I think they could have done this without promising no generative AI features. Promising to focus on artists, to not use creations for training, not partnering with companies who aren't respecting artists rights, all would have gone some way towards this.

bugglebeetle 2y ago
Considering that Procreate is overwhelmingly loved by artists while Adobe is at best seen as a necessary evil (and at worst bloatware owned by malevolent rentiers), I think the former has a better handle on their audience.
- bornfreddy 2y ago
  And yet: > "Now thats the way to send a message. Now if only you guys could get a full power competitor to [Photoshop] on desktop with plugin support. Until someone can build a real competitor to high level [Photoshop] use, I'm stuck with it." I think Photoshop will do just fine.
  - mattl 2y ago
    Sure. Just as McDonald’s will do just fine.
  - bugglebeetle 2y ago
    No one argued otherwise? This is irrelevant. My point was that Procreate is still in phase where they need to know their users and deliver what they want, vs. Adobe, who has used all kinds of lock-in and underhanded tactics to back users into a corner and say, “what the fuck you gonna do about it?” The latter is certainly a way a lot of people make money, but is not especially laudable or, as the parent argued, a contrasting route that Procreate could go down and be successful.
  - maxbond 2y ago
    That comment would seem to illustrate GP's point.
FridgeSeal 2y ago
Why should procreate be obliged to put generative models in? If they don’t want to, and their customers evidently agree, isn’t that sufficient? Your argument seems to frame it as them “fundamentally needing” , or are in some way obliged to have that feature, when no such evidence exists for that.
- danpalmer 2y ago
  My point is not that they fundamentally need it, but more that they are over-reacting to the current hype cycle. 5 years ago no one considered Photoshop's generative fill to be problematic, and I would have expected it to be on the long term roadmap of any similar piece of software. It was a widely appreciated feature that no one really felt was changing art. Even if the whole current generative AI trend disappears entirely, that's still a feature customers wanted before, and there's no reason to think they wouldn't still want it. And that's assuming nothing comes of the current trend. I would imagine the opposite, that at least one or two limited use-cases will be found for things similar to generative fill, that in years time will be regarded as normal, not as problematic. Now if Procreate wants to position themselves as "low tech", that's a different thing, and they're free to do so, but looking at their product it doesn't seem that they're going for "low tech" in any other way.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I think "no one" is overstating it, there are some who object to this sort of thing, the same way some people object to the use of autotune in popular music. But agreed, most people don't know/don't care, especially on the consumer side of the equation.
  - 112233 2y ago
    If it helps think about AI as meat (or sugar). You put "only locally grown beef^W AI", or "does not contain any meat^W genAI" not because you are low tech, but because these are your customer preferences Nowhere do they talk of shunning all maachine learning. Current generative models are not exactly a technological product.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
jazzyjackson 2y ago
Spot healing and content aware patch is not generative fill, its just cloning adjacent pixels - what AI are you referring to that's been there for years?
- deafpolygon 2y ago
  generative AI
bigboy12 2y ago
I agree 100%. Ai is just a New amazing tool.
maxbond 2y ago
You're using a different definition of AI than Procreate is. You can tell because no one has ever said generative fill was "founded on theft" (a statement you don't have to agree with to acknowledge the point). So you and Procreate are talking across purposes.
- tensor 2y ago
  Generative AI has a very specific meaning, it's not something that's "up for debate." That the general public has taken a trade term and abused it is not a reason to abandon the actual meaning among practitioners. Generative AI is AI that can generate examples from learned models. This is opposed to discriminating AI which given an answer can tell you if it's correct. This actually matters because in fact there are many types of gen AI, the vast majority not being image nor large language models. "Founded on theft" is nonsensical moralizing that doesn't help anyone with anything, and definitely doesn't help define any sort of sensible AI regulation.
  - maxbond 2y ago
    Sometimes people use terms in a way we don't agree with, but it doesn't give us license to misinterpret their meaning in doing so. (Please note I made no claim here about whether or not AI is "founded on theft" and only that Procreate used that turn of phrase.)
    - tensor 2y ago
      If they have license to misrepresent and abuse a term, users of that term absolutely have license to correct them. Being ignorant does not somehow put you above criticism or correction.
      - maxbond 2y ago
        I'm not saying there's no license to correct them, but that the substance of a disagreement is unlikely to be about definitions (and wasn't in this case). I think arguing about what terms mean is largely a distraction. All words are made up, the right definition is the one that serves the discussion you're having at any given moment. Letting your interlocutor pick their own terms is a free way to extend charity and aid mutual understanding. If you're talking to someone, that means meeting in the middle because it goes both ways. If you're reading or discussing a document and the author isn't around, that means adopting the author's terminology, because there isn't really an alternative.
m463 2y ago
Isn't there a distinction here? You can use AI models to help create content. What about something like object selection or object removal? But generative AI would base the art itself on AI training on someone's work on learning their style.
glimshe 2y ago
I know professional artists who have made use of Photoshop's generative AI for years in photo retouching scenarios. They are great artists but find no reason to waste time and money doing tedious generative tasks themselves.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
The “generative AI” that has been in PS for years is nothing like today’s LLM based gen AI tools such as sending Midjourney or Firefly.

echelon 2y ago

There are a lot of artists that hate AI and hate that it is trained on their work, and this is understandable. But it's becoming apparent that a not insignificant segment of the "antis" are actually comprised of non-artists who enjoy the messaging. If you follow Twitter drama or r/ArtistHate and r/AIWars, you'll see that a number of non-artists are stirring up anti-AI drama and gatekeeping a community they don't even belong to (yet). It's wild to see. They've been caught using AI to create art, then using AI to rip off that art with sock puppets, then posting complaints about it. On the flip side, I've met a lot of VFX artists that are using Comfy on the regular now as a part of their process. They love it. A lot of this "no-AI" marketing is catering to this "anti" movement. I suspect they wouldn't want software with "no algorithms", though. And as more artists come to use AI in their work, I believe that's where the argument will shift: that generative AI is just another tool in the artist's tool box.

xwolfi 2y ago
There is no AI, there s nothing intelligent in these things. Just call it a complex algorithm that some people feel are useless and expensive to run.
- Kiro 2y ago
  How is that relevant to the comment you're replying to? Strange choice for a generic rant against the term.
protocolture 2y ago
Thats correct. I see lots of tired old arguments drawn out by people in any art adjacent community whenever it is mentioned. Mostly from non users of AI and non artists (AI friendly or not) The only legit argument seems to be that AI has empowered scores of low quality submissions to various places. The issue being is that instead of asking low quality submissions to go away, they take angry anti AI stances. The problem as its been put over and over again is that branding things as AI is good for initial funding but bad for the actual implementation.

poorinterview 2y ago

This is so shortsighted. GenAI has dramatically increased access to creative expression for likely tens of millions of people. It shouldn't be shunned, but rather used as a gateway to developing a deeper and more expressive skillset. They're shooting themselves in the foot. EDIT: What's with the downvotes? Other "pro-genAI" comments are getting downvoted too. How is it that a community of builders and hackers are so against this?

bugglebeetle 2y ago
> dramatically increased access to creative expression for likely tens of millions of people This is like saying keyboards suddenly made tens of millions of people novelists and shows deep confusion about what constitutes creative expression.
- poorinterview 2y ago
  Yes, the keyboard likely increased access to expression. I can type more at pace with my thoughts than I can write, and for far longer. And something as little as modifying a meme is a form of creative expression.
  - maxbond 2y ago
    Have you ever stared at a blank page (canvas, editor widow, ...) and wanted very badly to put something there but been unable to do so? Is there a technological tool[1] which would've solved that problem? [1] Technological as opposed to, say, a mindfulness technique, which some would describe as a tool.
- protocolture 2y ago
  Nah the commenter you are responding to is correct. I dont share any of my content with people. I dont think its any good. But I can sit down with 3 AI's and bash out a story that I enjoy, that I largely controlled the creation of. Heck you can do it in multiple ways. I can have NovelAI fix the rough edges of my writing. I can have ChatGPT use a format like Lester Dents and simply ask me for the creative bits in between. I can ask it to help me follow a formal novel outline process. Years ago I wanted to commission some art from a Deviant Art account. I waited 3 weeks for the response that they didnt have the time and suggested other people. I am not saying AI should replace that bloke, and it hasnt he now has a steady high paying gig, but the time for me to go from brainfart to execution has drastically decreased. The creative input I have in the process hasn't changed. Its all critique and develop right. Heck most tools let me highlight the problem and rework just that part of the image. Ultimately I enjoy it as creativity. Even if people look down their nose at it, its working the same muscles just faster.

xiphias2 2y ago

When a CEO hates a technology it's probably because it leapedfrogged his app and he's already seeing decreasing revenue growth.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] Lots of discussion 2 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41295957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41295957