Popular iPad design app Procreate is coming out against generative AI, and has vowed never to introduce generative AI features into its products. The company said on its website that although machine learning is a “compelling technology with a lot of merit,” the current path that generative AI is on is wrong for its platform.
Procreate goes on to say that it’s not chasing a technology that is a threat to human creativity, even though this may make the company “seem at risk of being left behind.”
Procreate CEO James Cuda released an even stronger statement against the technology in a video posted to X on Monday.
CEO James Cuda
the irony
I don’t trust them. They better fire him and hire a Jim Abacus.
The CEO should ideally have the exact same name as the company. Like Tim Apple.
Or Sam Sung.
The more you buy, the more you save!
As with everything the problem is not AI technology the problem is capitalism.
End capitalism and suddenly being able to share and openly use everyone’s work for free becomes a beautiful thing.
I agree, but as long as we still have capitalism I support measures that at least slow down the destructiveness of capitalism. AI is like a new powertool in capitalism’s arsenal to dismantle our humanity. Sure we can use it for cool things as well. But right now it’s used mostly to automate stuff that makes us human - art, music and so on. Not useful stuff like loading the dishwasher for me. More like writing a letter for me to invite my friends to my birthday. Very cool. But maybe the work I put in doing this myself is making my friends feel appreciated?
Edit: It’s also nice to at least have an app that takes this maximalist approach. Then people can choose. If they’re half-assing it there will be more and more ai-features creeping in over time. One compromise after the next until it’s like all the other apps. It’s also important to have such a maximalist stand in order to gauge the scale in a way.
This, over and over again.
Going against AI is being a luddite, not aware of the core underlying issue.
No doubt his decision was helped by the fact that you can’t really fit full image generation AI on iPads - for example Stable Diffusion needs at the very least 6GB of GPU memory to work.
That said, since what they sell is a design app, I applaud him for siding with the interests of at least some of his users.
PS: Is it just me that finds it funny that the guy’s last name is “Cuda” and CUDA is the Nvidia technology for running computing on their GPUs and hence widelly used for this kind of AI?
They’re all run on cloud, for commercial products.
Good point, I had forgotten that :/
you can’t really fit full image generation AI on iPads - for example Stable Diffusion needs at the very least 6GB of GPU memory to work.
You can currently run Stable Diffusion and Flux on iPads and iPhones with the Draw Things app. Including LoRAs and TIs and ControlNet and a whole bunch of other options I’m too green to understand.
Technically the app even runs on relatively old devices, though I imagine only at lower resolutions and probably takes ages.
But in my limited experience it works quite well on an iPad Pro and an iPhone 13 Pro.
I want to be more creative with SD. Do you have any recommendations similar to https://github.com/intel/openvino-ai-plugins-gimp
Honestly most of what I’ve learned about how to use SD comes from seeing what other people have done and trying to tweak or adjust to get a feel for the tool and its various models. Spend some time on a site like CivitAI to both see what can be done and to find models. I’m very much a noob and cannot produce results nearly as impressive as a good chunk of what I find on there.
The most important thing I’ve learned is how much generative AI, especially SD, is just a tool. And people with more creativity and a better understanding of the tool use it better, just like every other tool.
I do like the idea of using it in GIMP as an answer to Adobe’s Firefly.
While a honorable move, “never” doesn’t exist in a world based on quarterly financials…
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No, it sums up a very specific type of AI…
Blanket statement are dumb.
That’s a blanket statement. While I understand the sentiment, what about the thousands of “AIs” trained on private, proprietary data for personal or private use by organizations that own the said data. It’s the not the technology but the lack of regulation and misaligned incentives.
So definitely gonna have AI baked in by next year.
That stance will change if they ever get acquired. Might even get the chance to see James Cuda try and walk back this stance in a few years.
Very good news for artists. AI image generation is founded upon art theft, and art theft is something that artists are not fond of, so it’s really nice to see the developer being open about his respect to the artists who use the app!
I mean, ok, it’s not like anyone using Procreate is going to use AI generation in it anyway…
Didn’t krita say the same thing at one time?
It’s currently one of the best programs to generate AI art using self hosted models.
You can do that?
Ironically, I think AI may prove to be most useful in video games.
Not to outright replace writers, but so they instead focus on feeding backstory to AI so it essentially becomes the characters they’ve created.
I just think it’s going to be inevitable and the only possible option for a game where the player truly chooses the story.
I just can’t be interested in multiple choice games where you know that your choice doesn’t matter. If a character dies from option a, then option b, c, and d kill them as well.
Realising that as a kid instantly ruined telltale games for me, but I think AI used in the right way could solve that problem, to at least some degree.
Generative AI steals art.
Procreate’s customers are artists.
Stands to reason you don’t piss your customer base off.
Generative AI steals art.
No it doesn’t. Drop that repeated lie please
You are right, generally, generative AI pirates art and the rest of the content on the internet.
That is at least borderline more correct, but it’s still wrong. It learns using a neural network much like, but much simpler than, the one in your head
It doesn’t “learn” anything, its a database with linear algebra. Using anthropomorphic adjectives only helps to entrench this useless and wasteful technology to regular people.
Trying to redefine the word “learn” won;t help your cause either. Stop being a luddite and realise that it is neither useless not wasteful
Everyone loves increased work load and wow that’s a lot of power to… do what exactly.
You don’t need to resort to name calling, you could make a compelling argument instead…
I’m calling you a luddite because you’re being a luddite. AI is just a new medium, that’s all it is, you’re just scared of new technology just like how idiots were scared of photography a hundred and some years ago. You do not have an argument that holds any water because they were all made against photography, and many of them against pre-mixed paints before that!
Also I’m done arguing with anti-ai luddites because you are about as intractable as trump cultists. I’ll respond to a level or two of comments in good faith because someone else might see your nonsense and believe it but this deep it’s most likely you and me, and you’re not gonna be convinced of anything.
Stop being a luddite
Is it really not true? How many companies have been training their models using art straight out of the Internet while completely disregarding their creative licences or asking anyone for permission? How many times haven’t people got a result from a GenAI model that broke IP rights, or looked extremely similar to an already existing piece of art, and would probably get people sued? And how many of these models have been made available for commercial purposes?
The only logical conclusion is that GenAI steals art because it has been constantly “fed” with stolen art.
It does not steal art. It does not store copies of art, it does not deprive anyone of their pictures, it does not remix other people’s pictures, it does not recreate other people’s pictures unless very very specifically directed to do so (and that’'s on the human not he AI), and even then it usually gets things “wrong”. If you don’t completely redefine theft then it does not steal art
a technology that is a threat to human creativity
Perhaps the most stupid take on this subject I have seen. Nothing will stop humans creating, definitely not a new creative medium! That’s all it is, by the way, a new medium, like photography a hundred and some years ago, or digital painting more recently. Most of the same arguments were made against pre mixed paints - Turner was dragged for using them, for example!
I’m super concerned about what the future holds for humanity and I worry that AI will leave millions and millions without an income and further concentrate wealth towards the few.
That said this is clearly a “we can’t compete, let’s make a press release to say ‘this is all wrong and we choose not to compete’”-statement.
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That’s a very reactionary take, IMO.
There’s plenty of AI out there that’s not built on theft. You can train them solely on your own data if you want them to. There’s open source models out there trained only on data they were expressly given consent to use.
You can get machine learning algorithms to learn how to play basic games completely on their own, etc.
