“Creativity is made, not generated.”

Savage Interactive Pty Ltd., the maker of a popular iPad design app Procreate, made this a rallying cry today, coming out against the rise of generative artificial intelligence image creation being integrated into tech products and vowing never to add the technology to its software.

The company said on its website that although it thinks that machine learning is “a compelling technology with a lot of merit,” the path that generative AI is taking is not right for Procreate and will not be part of its future.

“We’re here for the humans,” the company added. “We’re not chasing a technology that is a moral threat to our greatest jewel: human creativity.”

The statement follows a current controversial row that has arisen with the explosive popularity AI image generators such as Open AI’s DALL-E 3, Stability AI Ltd.’s Stable Diffusion and Midjourney Inc. Common complaints include the source of the data used to train the models coming from potentially copyrighted images and the labor of artists that goes uncited and unpaid, as well as potential privacy issues where products that incorporate AI use of customers’ work for AI model training.

Savage Interactive Chief Executive James Cuda went to X to make an impassioned statement, replete with swear words, in a video.

We’re never going there. Creativity is made, not generated.
You can read more at https://t.co/9Fgh460KVu ✨ #procreate #noaiart pic.twitter.com/AnLVPgWzl3

— Procreate (@Procreate) August 18, 2024

“You’ve been asking us about AI. You know, I usually don’t like getting in front of the camera. I prefer that our products speak for themselves. I really f***ing hate generative AI,” Cuda said. “I don’t like what’s happening in the industry and I don’t like what it’s doing to artists. We’re not gonna be introducing any generative AI into our products. Our products are always designed with the idea that a human will be creating something.”

By eschewing AI for its products, Procreate could fall behind competitors that are quickly embracing the technology to allow customers to create images easily with simple prompts. For example, Adobe Inc.’s text-to-image and generative fill AI model, dubbed Firefly, is incorporated across its products such as Express, Photoshop and Illustrator.

However, in June users became concerned that Adobe was using their work to train its AI models leading to backlash. The company rapidly clarified that it would never “assume ownership of customer’s work.”

AI artwork itself requires the creative labor of hundreds of thousands of human artists to train the models to generate artwork. That has led to several lawsuits against major model developers, including Getty Images suing Stability AI for copyright and trademark infringement and multiple artists suing Stability AI, Deviant Art Inc. and Midjourney. Although a judge dismissed most of the claims in the latter case, the infringement complaint against Stability AI is still moving ahead.

With the increasing proliferation of AI-generated artwork and every generation of models becoming more accurate and capable than before it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell AI-generated artwork from human-made art. That’s beginning to chafe for human artists who labor to create artwork as more AI-generated artwork, which feels effortless to create from text prompts, begins to enter the marketplace, creating tension in the creative industry.

With ever more creative products integrating AI technology, it’s interesting to see one specifically turning away from generative AI to attract a customer base. Many users see the technology as an inevitable future that will overcome the industry, while others have spoken up in appreciation of Procreate’s stand against the wave of AI tools.

Image: Savage Interactive