There are times when you suspect AI might purloin the work of human artists through a complex legal and technical maze of training data, learning algorithms and user prompting. Then there's Adobe marketing AI-generated stock art titled "Ansel Adams-style" so there is no ambiguity at all about what the company is selling to its customers.
"You are on our last nerve with this behavior," the famed photographer's estate blasted Adobe on social media.
"Thank you for flagging as this goes against our Generative AI content policy," it responded. "We're glad our team was able to remove the content. We reached out via IG DM to share a way to get in touch directly in the future."
"Assuming you want to be taken seriously re: your purported commitment to ethical, responsible AI, while demonstrating respect for the creative community, we invite you to become proactive about complaints like ours, & to stop putting the onus on individual artists/artists' estates to continuously police our IP on your platform, on your terms," said the Adams estate on Threads. "It's past time to stop wasting resources that don't belong to you."
Why do it "directly" when you can do it publicly? In whose interests would that be?
A statement from the estate clarified that its issue was not over copyright but trademarks: "We don't have a problem with anyone taking inspiration from Ansel's photography. But we strenuously object to the unauthorized use of his name to sell products of any kind, including digital products, and this includes AI-generated output — regardless of whether his name has been used on the input side, or whether a given model has been trained on his work."
