If you’ve been paying attention this past year, it seems like every application—from Adobe Photoshop to Canva—chasing an AI white rabbit. James Cuda, CEO of iPad-centric The illustration app Procreate, came out on Sunday rocking with a simple statement: “I really hate the AI that generates.”
In a statement posted on Twitter, Cuda said, “I don’t like what’s happening in this industry, and I don’t like what’s being done to artists. We will not introduce any artificial AI in our products.”
We will never go there. Creativity is done, not done.
You can learn more at ✨ #zala #noaiart pic.twitter.com/AnLVPgWzl3-Zala (@Zala) August 18, 2024
For the company page about its AI systems is similarly acerbic. It echoes many of the same complaints that artists, illustrators, graphic designers, and other creatives have had about AI art generators.
Massive AI models are built on billions of images pulled from the web, including the copyrighted work of thousands of professional and emerging artists. Some anti-AI advocates have even suggested that artists poison their images to interfere with AI training.
On its page, Procreate says, “Generative AI takes the human out of things. Built on the foundation of theft, technology is leading us to a barren future.” Build claims does not have access to users’ creativity and does not track users’ activities.
Artists Throw Their Support Behind Procreate for Anti-AI Controversies
Musicians on the Internet praised Procreate, especially highlighting Cuda’s raw words. Concept artist Karla Ortiz wrote, “Now THIS is how an artist company supports artists.” Director and singer Jorge Gutierrez wrote, “Procreate 1, Adobe 0.”
Now THIS is how an artist company supports artists! By respecting and empowering them, NOT by taking advantage of them. Good for Procreate for being on the right side of history, and looking forward to whatever the team is up to next 🙌
— Karla Ortiz (@kortizart) August 19, 2024
We’ve seen some companies that seemed skeptical or hostile to AI finally come around to extolling its virtues (whatever they are). Getty Images previously sue Stable Diffusion They don’t make AI stability by using images from stock photo sites without permission. A few months later, it was introduced an AI image generator on the platform. The company claims that the AI model is built exclusively from images controlled by the company.
Getty is not alone there. Shutterstock and Adobe Stock and create their own AI image generators based on images that each have their own rights to. The companies effectively grandfathered in all the creators out there who shared their work on stock photo sites and offered to pay them some extra money for using their AI photos.
Adobe Took Heat With Its Firefly AI Model
Artists online compared Procreate’s anti-AI message to Adobe, a company that has drowned its products in AI features. The company has pushed Photoshop’s Firefly AI image generator hard in recent months, expanding its image-enhancing capabilities and cross-platform compatibility. That model is based on images taken from Adobe Stock, although a Bloomberg An April report revealed that the model includes other AI images in its training set.
Despite claims that it only uses its own content, the company has been eager to forge partnerships with artists. In June, the company changed its terms of service to say it could take photos of users and use them to train AI. It changed its own TOS specifying it will not “train generative AI models on your or your customers’ content unless you have submitted the content to the Adobe Stock marketplace.”
Last year, several high-profile artists he was sued by the great AI companies, including the makers of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, allege that AI companies have stolen their copyrighted work without permission. Last week, the California judge presiding over the case, William Orrick, allowed the case move forward in finding out.
