LogInPhotoshop and Substance 3D developer now openly antagonizes anti-AI creators by doubling down on generative AI.
Ever since the artificial intelligence boom of 2022, Photoshop and Substance 3D developer Adobe has been in a precarious position, having to constantly balance its identity as a tech company participating in the ridiculous race to scrape more data and feed more artwork into AI systems than the competitors, while also catering to a target audience largely made up of Digital Artists, whose attitude towards AI grows increasingly negative as time goes on.
After years of shoving generative AI into every product they own, Adobe has seemingly grown tired of maintaining this balance, with its leadership now openly antagonizing anti-AI artists by claiming that if they don't adopt the detested generative technology, they won't stand a chance at success.
In an interview with The Verge, Adobe's Vice President of Generative AI, Alexandru Costin, claimed that flesh-and-blood creators are "not going to be successful in this new world" if they refuse to use generative AI. He also noted that he "isn't aware" of any upcoming Adobe tools that won't come pre-packaged with some form of artificial intelligence-related technology. In other words, if you're using Photoshop, After Effects, or Substance 3D, you will inevitably come face-to-face with AI-powered tools, whether you like it or not.
"We have older versions of our products that don't use gen AI, but I wouldn't recommend using them," commented Costin. "Our goal is to make our customers successful, and we think that in order for them to be successful, they need to embrace the tech."
David Wadhwani, the company's President of Digital Media, echoed Costin's views, stating that regardless of user opinions, Adobe believes its approach "is the one that wins frankly in the short term, but certainly in the long term." At the same time, he acknowledged that the generated slop some people call "art" these days will never be valued at the same level as works produced by human hand and creativity, saying that in the future, real creators will become more treasured.
"I think there will be a thirst for artists who do things by hand," he said. "In the last decade, I can take a picture and run it through a process that makes it look like a painting, but I'm not going to value that 'painting' the same way I would an artist who actually took the time to make a real painting."
Furthermore, Wadhwani all but confirmed that Adobe's decision to continue pushing generative AI is driven purely by profits, as he stated that the Firefly-powered generative AI features they've added to their software have become some of the most adopted products the company has ever put on the market, a situation not too dissimilar from the video game industry, where some games' revenues and player reviews don't correlate.
Frankly speaking, Adobe's decision to triple down on AI, while absolutely despicable for many Digital Artists, was seen from miles away and evident to those who witnessed the massive controversy the company faced in June.
Back then, the community lambasted the developer for changes to its General Terms of Use, which required users of Adobe products to allow the company to access and view their creations through both automated and manual methods, and even analyze their work using techniques such as machine learning.
This led many to believe that the company planned to use all user-generated content to train its AI models, and even though Adobe has since clarified that they don't intend to do that, the belief can hardly be described as unfounded, considering that the developer is now disregarding the anti-AI sentiment of many creators in order to keep biggering on its artificial thneeds.
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