My Complicated Feelings on Adobe's Use of Generative AI
Edited on July 8th, 2024: After making this post, I had a long, in-depth conversation about this with a friend, which, along with me simply sitting with this issue for longer, has caused my thoughts and feelings on this to change and evolve somewhat. I decided not to edit any of the actual text that I wrote on June 11th because, hey, we’re all human. We’re all allowed to change our minds on things. I aspire to live my life with as much integrity as possible and hiding from my past opinions feels like taking a step back from that goal.
Let’s normalize feeling defensive but breathing through that defensiveness and allowing ourselves to change our minds on things (with more context, information, and perspectives), instead of feeling defensive and stubbornly refusing to change our minds because we always want to be right.
So without further ado, everything in bold is what I’ve added to the post since first writing it.😊
Okay. So…I know generative AI brings up a lot of fears and worries for a lot of people, especially creatives. And I know that Adobe hasn’t had the best track record lately.😬
Additionally, their recent Terms of Use update has caused a lot of (understandable!) frustration and confusion. Today, they posted the following message on their various social media platforms: “We recently rolled out a re-acceptance of our Terms of Use which has led to concerns about what these terms are and what they mean to our customers. This has caused us to reflect on the language we use in our Terms, and the opportunity we have to be clearer and address the concerns raised by the community.
Over the next few days, we will speak to our customers with a plan to roll out updated changes by June 18th.”
I’m not here to sell you on Adobe. That wasn’t even the purpose of the short presentation I did for them recently. They paid me fairly for both the presentation and the sticker I designed for them, but one of the things they specified to me was that I did not have to be sales-y. In fact, they told me that they would prefer my honesty. All of that said, I did just have a great experience working with Adobe so yes, I’m aware that I have a level of bias coming into this topic.
I specifically chose two of the generative AI tools that I feel the most comfortable using to showcase in my presentation because I’m not a big fan of using generative AI to create artwork from scratch, even from companies making an effort to do so ethically. For a few reasons…
1. Because I’m unsure if Adobe has, as of yet, set up good enough procedures to stop people from uploading AI images to Adobe Stock that go against their terms of service. They at the very least need to have a better system for flagging those types of breaches when they happen so that it’s not up to the artists to flag them themselves.
2. I don’t feel comfortable with even the possibility of accidentally stealing from another artist without them having been compensated fairly for it.
3. I simply do not like the look of it.😅
“I don’t feel comfortable with even the possibility of accidentally stealing from another artist without them having been compensated fairly for it.”
I have a lot of complicated thoughts on this situation, but what it ultimately boils down to for me is that Adobe is making an effort to handle generative AI ethically and I feel that immediately pushing against companies that are doing so, however imperfectly, is somewhat counterproductive to what we want as ethical creatives. New tech always takes some legal ironing out.
(ETA July 8th) To be quite frank, the above paragraph feels just a tad cringe to me now that I’ve ruminated on this issue more.😅 (It’s okay, we’re all cringe sometimes…or oftentimes.😅) I no longer believe that pushing back against Adobe is counterproductive, and I absolutely support those who feel strongly about abandoning ship to send a message. Money is the only thing big corporations really listen to, unfortunately. I now also feel that they need to dedicate more manpower, money, and time to making sure they are protecting all artists (illustrators, photographers, videographers, etc.). They have more than enough money to do so so I really hope they step up their game.
I do wish that Adobe hadn't integrated the use of the generate-from-scratch type of AI, and just the sort that supplements existing work like generative recolor and expand, but I also have no real understanding of how it works so they may not be able to integrate only some types without making the other (super useful and time-saving) types unusable. Though it probably is possible, let’s be real. I just don't know for sure. (If anyone does know more about it please feel free to share in the comments.) I think they feel like AI is here whether we like it or not so they're in a rocky period of figuring out how in the eff to use it ethically.
(ETA July 8th) But again, they have the money/resources to do so and it has been very sloppily handled so far.
They should have considered the criticism and response to the vaguely worded terms ahead of time and worked to make the terms more specific and less concerning before all of this recent uproar and anger, especially considering the fact that people have already expressed anger and frustration toward the company for their sloppy handling of the integration of generative AI so far (for good reason!). It was/is a bad move, clearly.
All of that said, it's not realistic for all of us to just up and quit Creative Cloud, seeing as it is still the industry standard and as such, required to use for a lot of designers and creatives, including myself. I'm, personally, willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and see how the terms shake out on June 18th and beyond. Perhaps I'm a naive optimist, but I guess we'll see. In all honesty, I will be surprised if all equivalent (or close to equivalent) digital art companies don’t eventually start using generative AI anyway so jumping ship from Adobe feels futile and pointless to me at this point. (I guess I’m not entirely optimistic.😅)
(ETA July 8th) I could absolutely be wrong about this, but only time will tell.😅
The other point I want to bring up is that if you are good at what you do and you post your work online, copying will happen no matter what. Generative AI just makes it a lot easier to do so in some ways, unfortunately. But copying isn’t always a bad thing! People copy to learn, animators need to be skilled at copying so that they can match the overall style of whatever they’re animating. If you haven’t read Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon, remedy that as soon as possible. It’s basically the holy grail of this topic, and if there’s any required reading for creatives, it’s that book (in my humble opinion).
I’m not saying that because it is bound to happen, we shouldn’t bother protecting our work or pushing for higher standards from companies like Adobe. We absolutely should!
I copyright my best work and I post disclaimers to my students on Skillshare informing them that they can only use my artwork for the purposes of education and practice alone. I still care. I just like to look at it in a more positive light, than a defeatist one. It sucks, yes, but it’s also kind of flattering. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We are in unprecedented times, folks. We can only do our best to act ethically in a capitalist landscape. We are in A Society™️ and it is tough. Adobe hasn’t been perfect, but at least they’re trying. At least they're not just completely ignoring everyone's concerns like Meta is. Your mileage may vary, but to me, that matters. I don't know, y'all. I'm tired. And I enjoy Adobe's digital art programs so my reluctance to switch is also, absolutely, somewhat selfish. *sigh*
(ETA July 8th) I like using generative AI to, 1) help speed up my creative digital art process, 2) make mockups I can apply my surface design work to and use in my portfolio, and 3) to edit my personal (and sometimes brand) photography. I still do not want to use create-from-scratch generative AI to create anything I would then go on to sell because, first of all, it feels like a creative cop-out and secondly (as I think I’ve made clear by now), I'm not convinced Adobe has done everything they can yet to protect artists or made a significant enough effort to train their AI ethically.
Never giving Adobe Stock contributors the option to opt out of their work being used to train AI, other than deleting all of their work from Adobe Stock, feels gross to me. And many artists didn’t hear about it in time to make the decision to delete their work from Stock or not. (Adobe should have been shouting that change from the rooftops to give people fair warning.) And then there’s the fact that people can upload AI images from other sources to Adobe Stock, which I don’t think should be allowed at all. I think that muddies the waters way too much and, personally, makes me distrust everything that comes out of Firefly. Based on some quick Googling, it sounds like this is being allowed less and less, which is promising but, to be quite frank, doesn’t remove the bad taste from my mouth entirely. I’m not trying to condemn anyone who uses AI, but only using AI for things I will not monetize just sits better with me.
At this point, with my job, I really can't abandon Adobe CC and, in all honesty, I still don't want to because I do love and enjoy all of the apps I use on the regular.
I wish Adobe's morals were a little clearer and not so muddied. I wish they’d give Stock contributors the right to opt out of their work being used to train AI. I wish they had build-your-own subscription models to make using one or two apps more affordable and customizable for people (I would still pay for CC myself, but it's always felt frustrating to me that they don't allow more subscription customization options so that many people are forced to pay for CC when they don't necessarily need to use all of the apps included). I wish we weren't stuck in a capitalist hellscape and I could happily use the art programs I love without feeling sort of guilty about it. I can’t put it better than I put it before so…
Do what feels best for you. I’m not here to tell you what to do. And whatever the case, keep on keepin’ on. Keep making art, and don’t forget to be creative purely for the simple joy of it. Thanks for reading!
