Artists Express Outrage Over Adobe's Use Of Their Work In New AI Firefly Tool — Explaining The Controversy

Adobe Inc ADBE recently announced its new family of AI tools under the name “Adobe Firefly”. The AI tools will be available in different Adobe apps, including Illustrator and Photoshop.

When the company reported earnings last week, executives were excited about the company’s “commercially safe” tool. Commercially safe implies that businesses and companies would be able to use AI-generated images and videos without having to worry about copyrights. 

But now artists are saying that Adobe used their artwork to train the AI tools without express notification or consent, according to a recent report by VentureBeat. Adobe used images and other content from "Adobe Stock" which contains more than 300 million images from various artists. 

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Because these artists sell their images through Adobe Stock, the new Firefly tool is a clear threat to content creators. Companies could opt to create AI-generated images through Firefly as opposed to buying artists’ content through Adobe Stock. 

“They’re using our IP to create content that will compete with us in the marketplace,” Dean Semad, a Photoshop editor and digital artist, said. “Even though they may legally be able to do that, because we all signed the terms of service, I don’t think it is either ethical or fair.” 

Adobe’s Firefly tool underscores the AI dilemma the business world is currently facing. Generating AI images through Firefly may be preferable for a company and more cost-effective, but to the detriment of the artists that create images “the old-fashioned way.”

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