It seems like AI art is taking over everything, and artists are unsure of what and who to trust, particularly with Adobe potentially stealthily signing up users to their AI’machine learning’ algorithm, Sensei.
Recently, French comic artist Claire Wendling realized Adobe’s privacy and personal data settings had an odd automatic opt-in – Photoshop had authorization to ‘analyse your material utilizing methods’. Essentially, until a user unchecks this box, Adobe’s AI will record and save how you use Photoshop, as well as an artist’s workflow and habits, and use that data to… well, train its AI to reproduce the activities. That’s the problem.
It’s not the first time artists have expressed concern about how AI is being used to steal art; recently, the ArtStation homepage was flooded with anti-AI art after the community discovered the site, the world’s largest art portfolio platform, was hosting AI art – some of which was created using art created by those who use the site.
Check out Claire Wendling’s Instagram post below, which has millions of views and over 5,000 retweets, as tweeted by artist Jon Lam.
Adobe commented on FastCompany (opens in new tab), where a spokeswoman issued the following written statement: “Adobe does not utilize any data held on Creative Cloud accounts of users to train its experimental Generative AI capabilities. To properly characterize Generative AI use cases, we are actively updating our policy.”
Adobe takes a different approach to AI usage than specialist AI picture generators and AI text-to-image tools, which scan the internet for digital art and photography to modify into new images.
Sensei, Adobe’s AI, is a self-contained application on Adobe servers that does not link to the internet or other AI. The difference, according to Adobe, is that AI Sensei is learning rather than stealing. Adobe employs AI to enhance the functionality of their products; for example, Content Aware Fill, Sky Replace, Object Selection, Auto Tone, and other tools were produced using AI Sensei’s learning. The hover masking function in Photoshop, for example, is great.
The problem boils down to trust in an era when artists are concerned about their copyrights, ownership of art, and a trend in which AI ‘art’ applications scrape paintings without authorization. Anger about AI-produced art has already resulted in one artist being banned from Reddit for making work that seems to be created by AI.
Midjourney, one of the biggest and most popular AI art picture producers, is infamous for not obtaining permission from artists to utilize their work to train the AI. Midjourney’s creator, David Holz, acknowledged to this in an interview with Forbes(opens in new tab) in September 2022. (Learn more about AI art generators in our comparative guide.)
That’s why I understand artists’ fury in response to Adobe’s tweet, as @immortanjill wrote: “What a shambles. Jon, thanks for the heads up. I swear, all this AI is hastening my future Sarah Connor arc.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from Adobe than ripping off artists with memberships, and then selling off their work,” tweeted @karpour.
As Adobe depends on user data to enhance Photoshop and its tools, AI is becoming a toxic phrase for artists and software engineers alike. If users begin to opt out for fear of Adobe assisting or creating text prompt AI picture creators, Photoshop may suffer.