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As uncertainty and debate heats up
about the impact of generative AI on the creative arts, Adobe wants to defend
its own position in developing AI tools integrated in Photoshop and its own
GenAI model Firefly while also reinforcing its brand as a champion of the
creator.
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“I truly believe that to be human is to be
creative, that creativity is a core part of who we are, whether or not you
consider yourself a creative person,” says Brooke Hopper, principal designer
for emerging design for AI/ML at Adobe, speaking
to Debbie Millman, designer and educator at The School
of Visual Arts and host of the podcast Design Matters.
While AI is in its baby steps phases
it is easier to cling onto the idea that creativity is essential to what it
means to be human. As AI technology advances however what passes for art,
imagination or the lived experience of someone may be indistinguishable from
the machine.
“It’s our emotions, our point of
view, our life experiences,” says Hopper. “It’s spontaneity, it’s deciding when
and where to break the rules. And so I do think that there’s a coexistence of
humans and machines [where] humans do what humans are good at and ultimately,
the machines are learning from us.”
Adobe can speak with a position of
some strength here since it took a decision several years ago to support and
build a pathway for tracking how AI has altered images and video content while
training its own AI tools on data that it owns or has been cleared for use by
third parties.
“We have to give them that data,” she
says, while also anthropomorphizing the machines. “They’re not at this point in
time making up data on their own. They’re simply taking the data day that we
feed them, breaking it down, and then recreating it from noise.”
Hopper acknowledges the issues that
come from feeding the machine data that humans have created.
“One thing to remember is these
machines rely on information that humans put out into the world. And humans are
biased, whether we try to be or not, we are. Therefore the machines are. We
need to do things in order to mitigate that bias.”
Adobe advocates training AI on data
that is licensed, with verified ownership, and that isn’t copyrighted. It began
the Content Authenticity Initiative in 2019 to help avoid some of the deepfake
issues that are now surfacing with regularity.
By embedding metadata in the content
that’s being created and being able to tag content with “do not train”
credentials, it hopes to “actively pursue ways that we can make sure that there
are artists protections and that creators are being protected.”
As other Adobe execs have indicated,
there is only so much responsibility a supplier of AI tools, is prepared to
accept. Consumers need to accept their fair share of responsibility for
quizzing whether content is “faked.”
Hopper says, “The general population
[should be] educated about how to spot a deep fake, how to know if a website is
not secure, because the technology to create deepfakes is getting better. And
unfortunately, it’s the same technology that’s helping people create new and
different content.”
Hopper backs moves by Congress and
other state bodies to enshrine protections from deepfakes in law. “But if
nothing is done legally, then morality is always a little bit of a slippery
slope.”
The argument from Adobe is that human
creativity will never be usurped by AI; that it remains a tool to be used as
part of a human led creative process. Hopper is an artist herself, and says she
would like to use GenAI tools to help her print 3D designs.
“That’s not to say that I’m going to
become a professional 3D artist by any means, but allows me to work in medium
and media that I wouldn’t be able to, or would struggle to previously. And
that’s what I’m super excited about.”
Generative AI, she insists, is “super
useful” within the ideation phase. “Imagine being able to generate even more
ideas and more different directions to be able to come to such a better end
goal.”
And the one thing that differentiates
human from AI generated content, she says, is our own ability to break the
rules.
“Machines don’t know when and how to
break rules. They follow the rules. So that’s what we lean into. One of the
biggest design principles is you have to learn the rules in order to break the
rules and breaking the rules is what makes something creative and enjoyable.
It’s that serendipitous rule breaking that that feeds into creativity.”
Just now, your basic GenAI tool
cannot “think.” It will spew infinite versions, each one different, of an input
we give it, based on data we give it. That may well change. But Adobe and
Hopper look on the bright side. What else can they do?
“In the next 10 years we’re going to
see an explosion of more creativity and content and, I think, more awareness.
I’m really excited about the possibilities of more immersive design and
experiences,” Hopper says. “Like, what happens when you’re potentially
interacting with the artist in [a gallery or museum] piece, or you become part
of the piece?”
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