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The AI space has such a high risk profile. Adobe's choice: bet on AI, and if AI takes off, Adobe is more profitable than ever. Or, bet on AI, and if AI doesn't

The AI space has such a high risk profile. Adobe's choice: bet on AI, and if AI takes off, Adobe is more profitable than ever. Or, bet on AI, and if AI doesn't take off, Adobe damages its own reputation (potentially permanently). AI is leading to so many companies making choices like this.

jsheard 2y ago
Adobe is being pretty conservative by AI standards however, by only training their models on material they've licensed. They seem to be banking on a middle path where AI does take off but most of the competition which took the YOLO approach to licensing eventually gets shot down by the courts and goes down in flames. Getty Images is doing something similar.
- GaggiX 2y ago
  Given that they own a big library of images, it's the path they prefer.
- jokellum 2y ago
  If you use their product, per their tos, my understanding is they can train on their customer data at any time. In other words, if you use their product, they automatically have license to train on your art. I think the only statements saying that they don't train on their customer data is from their CEO, but unless they encode it in their tos, that doesn't really matter.
  - Regnore 2y ago
    This is not true - they do not train on customer data - they have clarified this here: https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-adobe-terms-of-use https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-a...
  - thrdbndndn 2y ago
    How do they even get "customer data"? Majority of people in this space do not use Adobe's cloud. Do you think they just stream any photos you've opened with Photoshop to Adobe?
- zrobotics 2y ago
  I mean, given their recent liscence kerfuffle it seems clear to me that Adobe really wanted to be able to train on customer data. They had to backpedal, since that generated a surprising amount of controversy. They hold an effective monopoly in certain fields, and their behavior shows they really don't always have customer interests at heart. Even without customer data to train on, they do have a pretty large moat with their image library. And you are right, they are in a good position VS competitors who trained on data they don't have rights to. We'll have to see how things play out legally, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up that something like midjourney ends up in an untenable position. However, openAI has a huge amount of funds that could be redirected to fight a oegal/lobbying battle. While they aren't a direct Adobe competitor, their whole business revolves around using unliscenced data to train their models, so they have a pretty clear horse in this race.
  - cma 2y ago
    Someone submits one image to their library that they didn't own the rights to and Adobe has to do a completely new training run to remove it, since you can't just delete. Or they just leave it up and admit they didn't need the rights and their library being cleared of rights isn't really a value add.
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  AI becomes a lot more useful in a commercial setting when you can steer it towards a desired style which means training. Would imagine once they roll out the ability to drive it that way they'll include the licence to use whatever you feed into it for their own training too and many will capitulate.
aussiegreenie 2y ago
It's the classic "Innovator's Dilemma," but as most of Adobe's clients are graphic professionals, they should make gradual changes and leave others with the bleeding edge. Workflow improvements are what most users want. Simplify common tasks or even have a "lite version" with fewer features but is easier to use for non-technical people.
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
If everyone's reputation has been damaged, has anyone's reputation been damaged?
- jsheard 2y ago
  Not quite everyone: https://procreate.com/ai https://procreate.com/ai
- namaria 2y ago
  AI winter is coming and I wouldn't wanna be known as an 'AI' person then.
wmf 2y ago
If Adobe creates AI that specifically doesn't replace artists (except for extremely menial tasks) and explicitly doesn't "steal" anything yet the AI haters still oppose it, that only shows how irrational the hating is. It's kind of a great litmus test.
- BillSaysThis 2y ago
  Those are two big ifs though.
- 650REDHAIR 2y ago
  How are you defining steal?
  - wmf 2y ago
    Scraping the Web, DeviantArt, YouTube, etc.
chpatrick 2y ago
Pretty sure it's taken off already.
dartos 2y ago
Adobe has no good reputation anyway, they are just so entrenched in the media and print industries that they can do whatever they want.

jsheard 2y ago

Adobe is being pretty conservative by AI standards however, by only training their models on material they've licensed. They seem to be banking on a middle path where AI does take off but most of the competition which took the YOLO approach to licensing eventually gets shot down by the courts and goes down in flames. Getty Images is doing something similar.

GaggiX 2y ago
Given that they own a big library of images, it's the path they prefer.
jokellum 2y ago
If you use their product, per their tos, my understanding is they can train on their customer data at any time. In other words, if you use their product, they automatically have license to train on your art. I think the only statements saying that they don't train on their customer data is from their CEO, but unless they encode it in their tos, that doesn't really matter.
- Regnore 2y ago
  This is not true - they do not train on customer data - they have clarified this here: https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-adobe-terms-of-use https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-a...
- thrdbndndn 2y ago
  How do they even get "customer data"? Majority of people in this space do not use Adobe's cloud. Do you think they just stream any photos you've opened with Photoshop to Adobe?
zrobotics 2y ago
I mean, given their recent liscence kerfuffle it seems clear to me that Adobe really wanted to be able to train on customer data. They had to backpedal, since that generated a surprising amount of controversy. They hold an effective monopoly in certain fields, and their behavior shows they really don't always have customer interests at heart. Even without customer data to train on, they do have a pretty large moat with their image library. And you are right, they are in a good position VS competitors who trained on data they don't have rights to. We'll have to see how things play out legally, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up that something like midjourney ends up in an untenable position. However, openAI has a huge amount of funds that could be redirected to fight a oegal/lobbying battle. While they aren't a direct Adobe competitor, their whole business revolves around using unliscenced data to train their models, so they have a pretty clear horse in this race.
- cma 2y ago
  Someone submits one image to their library that they didn't own the rights to and Adobe has to do a completely new training run to remove it, since you can't just delete. Or they just leave it up and admit they didn't need the rights and their library being cleared of rights isn't really a value add.
whywhywhywhy 2y ago
AI becomes a lot more useful in a commercial setting when you can steer it towards a desired style which means training. Would imagine once they roll out the ability to drive it that way they'll include the licence to use whatever you feed into it for their own training too and many will capitulate.

aussiegreenie 2y ago

It's the classic "Innovator's Dilemma," but as most of Adobe's clients are graphic professionals, they should make gradual changes and leave others with the bleeding edge. Workflow improvements are what most users want. Simplify common tasks or even have a "lite version" with fewer features but is easier to use for non-technical people.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

If everyone's reputation has been damaged, has anyone's reputation been damaged?

jsheard 2y ago
Not quite everyone: https://procreate.com/ai https://procreate.com/ai
namaria 2y ago
AI winter is coming and I wouldn't wanna be known as an 'AI' person then.

wmf 2y ago

If Adobe creates AI that specifically doesn't replace artists (except for extremely menial tasks) and explicitly doesn't "steal" anything yet the AI haters still oppose it, that only shows how irrational the hating is. It's kind of a great litmus test.

BillSaysThis 2y ago
Those are two big ifs though.
650REDHAIR 2y ago
How are you defining steal?
- wmf 2y ago
  Scraping the Web, DeviantArt, YouTube, etc.

chpatrick 2y ago

Pretty sure it's taken off already.

dartos 2y ago

Adobe has no good reputation anyway, they are just so entrenched in the media and print industries that they can do whatever they want.