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> Adobe is the one major company trying to be ethical with its AI training data and no one seems to even care. It's because nobody actually wants that. Artist

> Adobe is the one major company trying to be ethical with its AI training data and no one seems to even care. It's because nobody actually wants that. Artists don't like AI image generators because they have to compete with them, not because of how they were trained. How they were trained is just the the most plausible claim they can make against them if they want to sue OpenAI et al over it, or to make a moral argument that some kind of misappropriation is occurring. From the perspective of an artist, a corporation training an AI image generator in a way that isn't susceptible to moral or legal assault is worse, because then it exists and they have to compete with it and there is no visible path for them to make it go away.

mjmsmith 2y ago
Most artists would prefer not to compete with an AI image generator that has been trained on their own artwork without their permission, for obvious reasons.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  That's exactly the moral argument Adobe is taking away from them, and the same argument has minimal economic relevance because it's so rare that a customer requires a specific individual artist's style.
  - __loam 2y ago
    Artists don't hate Adobe just because they're making an AI art generator, they hate Adobe because it's a predatory, scummy corporation that is difficult to work with and is the gatekeeper for common industry tools. Also, Adobe didn't take away the moral arguments against AI art, they just used previously liscened imagery that existed before they started making AI art generators. There's still an argument that it's deceptive to grandfather in previously licensed work into a new technology, and there's still an argument that spending resources on automating cultural expression is a shitty thing to do.
    - t0bia_s 2y ago
      As an artist, mine major complain about Adobe is their spyware software design. Constant calls for adobe servers, unable to work offline in field with their product and no support for linux. Also, I'm curious, when they start censoring exports from their software. They already do that for money scans. I'm not worry about image generators. They'll never generate art by definition. AI tools are same as camera back then - a new tool that still require human skills and purpose to create specific tasks.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > Artists don't hate Adobe just because they're making an AI art generator, they hate Adobe because it's a predatory, scummy corporation that is difficult to work with and is the gatekeeper for common industry tools. From what I've seen from artists, they hate Adobe for both reasons, and the AI thing is often more of a dogmatic, uncompromising hate (and is not based on any of the various rationalizations used to persuade others to act in accord with it) and less of the kind of hate that is nevertheless willing to accept products for utility.
  - mjmsmith 2y ago
    That must be why AI image prompts never reference an artist name.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      The vast majority of AI image prompts don't reference an artist name, and the ones that do are typically using it as a proxy for a given style and would generally get similar results by specifying the name of the style instead of the name of the artist. The ones using the name of the artist/studio (e.g. Ghiblification) also seem more common than they are because they're the ones that garner negative attention. Then the media attention a) causes people perceive it as being more common than it is and b) causes people do it more for a short period of time, making it temporarily more common even though the long-term economic relevance is still negligible.
      - fc417fc802 2y ago
        The latter example (Ghibli) is also somewhat misleading. Other studios sometimes use very similar styles. They might not have the same budget for fine detail throughout the entire length of the animation, and they probably don't do every production with that single art style, but when comparing still frames (which is what these tools generate after all) the style isn't really unique to a single studio.
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  He's arguing that artists are so scared of Adobe and AI that they actually want Adobe to be more evil so artists have more to complain about.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    They want AI image generation to go away. That isn't likely to happen, but their best hope would be to make copyright claims or try to turn the public against AI companies with accusations of misappropriation. Adobe's "ethical" image generator would be immune to those claims while still doing nothing to address their primary concern, the economic consequences. It takes away their ammunition while leaving their target standing. Are they supposed to like a company doing that or does it just make them even more upset?
Sir_Twist 2y ago
I'd say that is a bit of an ungenerous characterization. Is it possible that it could be both? That while artists maybe do feel under attack in terms of competition, that there is a genuine ethical dilemma at hand? If I were an artist, and I made a painting and published it to a site which was then used to train an LLM, I would feel as though the AI company treated me disingenuously, regardless of competition or not. Intellectual property laws aside, I think there is a social contract being broken when a publicly shared work is then used without the artist's direct, explicit permission.
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  Artists do not want to get paid micropennies for use-of-training-data licenses for something that destroys the market for new art. And that's the only claim Adobe Firefly makes for being ethical. Adobe used a EULA Roofie to make all their Adobe Stock contributors consent to getting monthly payments for images trained on in Firefly.
  - Sir_Twist 2y ago
    Indeed, and I agree that Adobe is in the wrong here. For an agreement between Adobe and an artist to be truly permissive, the artist should have the ability to not give their consent. Ethically, I think Adobe is in the same position as the other AI companies – if the artist doesn't directly (EULAs are not direct, in my opinion) agree to the terms, and if they don't have the option to decline, then it isn't an agreement, it is an method of coercion. If an artist, like you said, doesn't want to be paid micropennies, they shouldn't have to agree. I believe it is completely reasonable for an artist to want to share their work publicly on the Internet without fear of it being appropriated, and I wish there was a pragmatic way they could achieve this.
- furyofantares 2y ago
  I've never seen anyone make the complaint about image classifiers or image segmentation. It's only for generative models and only once they got good enough to be useful.
squigz 2y ago
I don't think all artists are treating this tool as such an existential threat.
- b112 2y ago
  I don't think all artists are treating this tool as such an existential threat. You cannot find any group, where "all" is true in such context. There's always an element of outlier. That said, you're not really an artist if you direct someone else to paint. Imagine a scenario where you sit back, and ask someone to paint an oil painting for you. During the event, you sit in an easy chair, watch them with easel and brush, and provide direction "I want clouds", "I want a dark background". The person does so. You're not the artist. All this AI blather is the same. At best, you're a fashion designer. Arranging things in a pleasant way.
  - squigz 2y ago
    One could say much the same thing about photographers, or digital artists. They don't use paint, or sculpt marble, so they're not real artists.
    - Juliate 2y ago
      Who talked about "real" here? Photographers do manipulate cameras, and rework afterwise the images to develop. Digital artists do manipulate digital tools. Their output is a large function of their informed input, experience, taste, knowledge, practice and intention, using their own specific tools in their own way. Same with developers: the result is a function of their input (architecture, code, etc.). Garbage in, garbage out. With AI prompters, the output is part function of the (very small) prompt, part function of the (huuuuuuuge) training set, part randomness. If you're the director of a movie, or of a photo shoot, you're the director. Not the photographer, not the set painter, not the carpenter, not the light, etc. If you're the producer, you're not the artist (unless you _also_ act as an artist in the production). Do you feel the difference?
      - 2y ago
PaulHoule 2y ago
I went through a phase of using the A.I. tools to touch up photos and thought they were helpful. If I needed to add another row of bricks to a wall or remove something they get it done. I haven’t used it in a few months because I’m taking different photos than I was back then.
- davidee 2y ago
  We used that particular feature quite heavily. A lot of our clients often have poorly cropped photos or something with branding that needed removal and the context-aware generative fill was quite good. But we decided to drop Adobe after some of their recent shenanigans and moved to a set of tools that didn't have this ability and, frankly, we didn't really miss it that much. Certainly not enough to ever give Adobe another cent.
timewizard 2y ago
> or to make a moral argument that some kind of misappropriation is occurring. They can also make a legal argument that the training set will fully reproduce copyrighted work. Which is just an actual crime as well as being completely amoral. > because then it exists and they have to compete with it The entire point of copyright law is: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Individual artists should not have to "compete" against a billion dollar corporation which freely engages in copyright violations that these same artists have to abide by.
dbdr 2y ago
> From the perspective of an artist, a corporation training an AI image generator in a way that isn't susceptible to moral or legal assault is worse That's ignoring the fact that an AI image generator trained without infringing on existing works would have way worse quality, because of the reduced amount and quality of the training set.
Suppafly 2y ago
>Artists don't like AI image generators because they have to compete with them I always wonder why people make statements like this. Anyone that knows more than one artist knows that artists uses these tools for a variety of reasons and aren't nearly as scared as random internet concern trolls make them out to be.

mjmsmith 2y ago

Most artists would prefer not to compete with an AI image generator that has been trained on their own artwork without their permission, for obvious reasons.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
That's exactly the moral argument Adobe is taking away from them, and the same argument has minimal economic relevance because it's so rare that a customer requires a specific individual artist's style.
- __loam 2y ago
  Artists don't hate Adobe just because they're making an AI art generator, they hate Adobe because it's a predatory, scummy corporation that is difficult to work with and is the gatekeeper for common industry tools. Also, Adobe didn't take away the moral arguments against AI art, they just used previously liscened imagery that existed before they started making AI art generators. There's still an argument that it's deceptive to grandfather in previously licensed work into a new technology, and there's still an argument that spending resources on automating cultural expression is a shitty thing to do.
  - t0bia_s 2y ago
    As an artist, mine major complain about Adobe is their spyware software design. Constant calls for adobe servers, unable to work offline in field with their product and no support for linux. Also, I'm curious, when they start censoring exports from their software. They already do that for money scans. I'm not worry about image generators. They'll never generate art by definition. AI tools are same as camera back then - a new tool that still require human skills and purpose to create specific tasks.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > Artists don't hate Adobe just because they're making an AI art generator, they hate Adobe because it's a predatory, scummy corporation that is difficult to work with and is the gatekeeper for common industry tools. From what I've seen from artists, they hate Adobe for both reasons, and the AI thing is often more of a dogmatic, uncompromising hate (and is not based on any of the various rationalizations used to persuade others to act in accord with it) and less of the kind of hate that is nevertheless willing to accept products for utility.
- mjmsmith 2y ago
  That must be why AI image prompts never reference an artist name.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    The vast majority of AI image prompts don't reference an artist name, and the ones that do are typically using it as a proxy for a given style and would generally get similar results by specifying the name of the style instead of the name of the artist. The ones using the name of the artist/studio (e.g. Ghiblification) also seem more common than they are because they're the ones that garner negative attention. Then the media attention a) causes people perceive it as being more common than it is and b) causes people do it more for a short period of time, making it temporarily more common even though the long-term economic relevance is still negligible.
    - fc417fc802 2y ago
      The latter example (Ghibli) is also somewhat misleading. Other studios sometimes use very similar styles. They might not have the same budget for fine detail throughout the entire length of the animation, and they probably don't do every production with that single art style, but when comparing still frames (which is what these tools generate after all) the style isn't really unique to a single studio.
unethical_ban 2y ago
He's arguing that artists are so scared of Adobe and AI that they actually want Adobe to be more evil so artists have more to complain about.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  They want AI image generation to go away. That isn't likely to happen, but their best hope would be to make copyright claims or try to turn the public against AI companies with accusations of misappropriation. Adobe's "ethical" image generator would be immune to those claims while still doing nothing to address their primary concern, the economic consequences. It takes away their ammunition while leaving their target standing. Are they supposed to like a company doing that or does it just make them even more upset?

Sir_Twist 2y ago

I'd say that is a bit of an ungenerous characterization. Is it possible that it could be both? That while artists maybe do feel under attack in terms of competition, that there is a genuine ethical dilemma at hand? If I were an artist, and I made a painting and published it to a site which was then used to train an LLM, I would feel as though the AI company treated me disingenuously, regardless of competition or not. Intellectual property laws aside, I think there is a social contract being broken when a publicly shared work is then used without the artist's direct, explicit permission.

kmeisthax 2y ago
Artists do not want to get paid micropennies for use-of-training-data licenses for something that destroys the market for new art. And that's the only claim Adobe Firefly makes for being ethical. Adobe used a EULA Roofie to make all their Adobe Stock contributors consent to getting monthly payments for images trained on in Firefly.
- Sir_Twist 2y ago
  Indeed, and I agree that Adobe is in the wrong here. For an agreement between Adobe and an artist to be truly permissive, the artist should have the ability to not give their consent. Ethically, I think Adobe is in the same position as the other AI companies – if the artist doesn't directly (EULAs are not direct, in my opinion) agree to the terms, and if they don't have the option to decline, then it isn't an agreement, it is an method of coercion. If an artist, like you said, doesn't want to be paid micropennies, they shouldn't have to agree. I believe it is completely reasonable for an artist to want to share their work publicly on the Internet without fear of it being appropriated, and I wish there was a pragmatic way they could achieve this.
furyofantares 2y ago
I've never seen anyone make the complaint about image classifiers or image segmentation. It's only for generative models and only once they got good enough to be useful.

squigz 2y ago

I don't think all artists are treating this tool as such an existential threat.

b112 2y ago
I don't think all artists are treating this tool as such an existential threat. You cannot find any group, where "all" is true in such context. There's always an element of outlier. That said, you're not really an artist if you direct someone else to paint. Imagine a scenario where you sit back, and ask someone to paint an oil painting for you. During the event, you sit in an easy chair, watch them with easel and brush, and provide direction "I want clouds", "I want a dark background". The person does so. You're not the artist. All this AI blather is the same. At best, you're a fashion designer. Arranging things in a pleasant way.
- squigz 2y ago
  One could say much the same thing about photographers, or digital artists. They don't use paint, or sculpt marble, so they're not real artists.
  - Juliate 2y ago
    Who talked about "real" here? Photographers do manipulate cameras, and rework afterwise the images to develop. Digital artists do manipulate digital tools. Their output is a large function of their informed input, experience, taste, knowledge, practice and intention, using their own specific tools in their own way. Same with developers: the result is a function of their input (architecture, code, etc.). Garbage in, garbage out. With AI prompters, the output is part function of the (very small) prompt, part function of the (huuuuuuuge) training set, part randomness. If you're the director of a movie, or of a photo shoot, you're the director. Not the photographer, not the set painter, not the carpenter, not the light, etc. If you're the producer, you're not the artist (unless you _also_ act as an artist in the production). Do you feel the difference?
    - 2y ago

PaulHoule 2y ago

I went through a phase of using the A.I. tools to touch up photos and thought they were helpful. If I needed to add another row of bricks to a wall or remove something they get it done. I haven’t used it in a few months because I’m taking different photos than I was back then.

davidee 2y ago
We used that particular feature quite heavily. A lot of our clients often have poorly cropped photos or something with branding that needed removal and the context-aware generative fill was quite good. But we decided to drop Adobe after some of their recent shenanigans and moved to a set of tools that didn't have this ability and, frankly, we didn't really miss it that much. Certainly not enough to ever give Adobe another cent.

timewizard 2y ago

> or to make a moral argument that some kind of misappropriation is occurring. They can also make a legal argument that the training set will fully reproduce copyrighted work. Which is just an actual crime as well as being completely amoral. > because then it exists and they have to compete with it The entire point of copyright law is: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Individual artists should not have to "compete" against a billion dollar corporation which freely engages in copyright violations that these same artists have to abide by.

dbdr 2y ago

> From the perspective of an artist, a corporation training an AI image generator in a way that isn't susceptible to moral or legal assault is worse That's ignoring the fact that an AI image generator trained without infringing on existing works would have way worse quality, because of the reduced amount and quality of the training set.

Suppafly 2y ago

>Artists don't like AI image generators because they have to compete with them I always wonder why people make statements like this. Anyone that knows more than one artist knows that artists uses these tools for a variety of reasons and aren't nearly as scared as random internet concern trolls make them out to be.