Clip Studio Paint Rolls Back AI Image Generator Amidst Artist Backlash

Popular Japanese illustration app Clip Studio Paint has scrapped the rollout of its new Image Generator Palette feature following the backlash from users.

On November 29, Celsys, the company behind Clip Studio Paint, announced the upcoming update to the app revealing that it would feature a new AI image generator tool called Image Generator Palette. According to the company, it was supposed to use Stable Diffusion – a deep learning, text-to-image model – to power its generator.

AI-powered text-to-image models have been widely criticized for the use of artists' works in training data without creators' consent but Celsys assured users that it wouldn't be providing any user data to train the Stable Diffusion model.

At the same time, however, in a disclaimer for the experimental feature, the company wrote that it "cannot guarantee that images generated by the current model will not infringe on the rights of others."

Shortly after the announcement, a wave of criticism mounted on Celsys, so just three days after the company revealed Image Generator Palette, it announced that it had dropped the feature and apologized to its community.

"After the initial announcement, we received a lot of feedback from the community and will no longer implement the image generator palette," Celsys said in a statement. "We were so preoccupied with how generative AI technology could be used creatively that we lost sight of what our core users want from Clip Studio Paint as a creative tool. We would like to sincerely apologize."

Although the topic of AI-generated art and its integration into various services has been highly controversial, increasingly more companies have started to introduce AI-powered features that use text-to-image models.

For instance, a few months ago, a supplier of stock images Shutterstock announced an integration with OpenAI's DALL-E 2, and Microsoft revealed that it would be bringing AI-generated art to its Office suite. Most recently, Adobe shared that it's opening its stock images service, Adobe Stock, to images generated by AI-powered text-to-image services.

Nonetheless, there are still companies that are more conservative about the use of AI text-to-image models. Such companies include Getty Images, Newgrounds, PurplePort, and FurAffinity which banned AI-generated art on their platforms citing concerns about the impact on artists as well as the legal consequences of using art created by tools that were developed on copyrighted works.

What's your take on the integration of AI text-to-image models into various services and AI generators' existence in general? Share your thoughts in the comments below and don't forget to join our Reddit page and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.