Generative AI can be a powerful tool in the hands of a creator. It can expand creativity by working as a partner in brainstorming, ideation and execution, and has the ability to help creators produce their best work faster.
But ever since the technology became public knowledge, creators have understandably been wary. There is uncertainty about its potential impact on creators’ livelihoods. There is little transparency about how companies train their AI – and whose content they use.
Adobe set out to address this uncertainty with Adobe Firefly, its family of creative generative AI models built to bring out the best in human creativity—while giving creators the transparency and choice they deserve. Designed to be safe for commercial use, Adobe strives to make Firefly the most creator-friendly generative AI solution on the market, responsibly delivering on the promise of generative AI.
Generative AI that creators can trust
A creative identity is an amalgamation of many things – the creator’s vision, their experiences, their personality, the content they’ve consumed, and so much more. It’s a unique style and expression that has been honed over years of practice.
For generative AI, the question is whether it will make it easier for bad actors to imitate the creator’s style without credit. So Adobe takes seriously its commitment to creating a better environment for creators. Firefly only trains on content it has permission and rights to use, such as Adobe Stock licensed material and public domain content – not customer content. Unlike many other companies, Adobe does not train Firefly with content mined from the web without permission.
Additionally, Firefly is designed not to create content that infringes copyright or intellectual property rights. Adobe deploys security at every step—before training, during generation, when the module is invoked, and when the module produces output.
When contributors add their work to Stock, they do so transparently so that it can be used to train Firefly. Adobe provided bonus payments to stock contributors whose work was used in Firefly training.
Unleash human creativity
Creators know that their limitless imaginations sometimes outstrip the time they have available to bring their ideas to life. Seamlessly integrated into popular Adobe applications that creators know and love, such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Premier Pro and Adobe Express, Firefly aims to close this gap with generative AI features that accelerate and extend the creative process.
For example, creators can make quick edits or create variants of their existing content – while maintaining brand standards. In Photoshop, Firefly-powered Generative Expand helps creators expand the frame of a photo, while Premiere Pro’s Generative Extend can add frames to videos for smoother overall editing. Generative removal in Lightroom allows photographers – from hobbyists to professionals – to quickly and easily remove unwanted objects and distractions, even on complex backgrounds. In Adobe Express, creators can use Firefly-powered image and text effects generation to generate unique videos or create exceptional social posts and stories.
All of these tools help maintain the integrity of the creative process while freeing creators from tedious and time-consuming tasks to efficiently summon their best work. Firefly’s generative AI models are powerful and evolve responsibly in the age of AI.
Protecting creators and promoting trust
However, Adobe’s efforts do not stop at the level of its own AI. The company is an advocate for responsible innovation and creator rights across industries, including within legislation.
Adobe is a founding member of the Content Authenticity Initiative, a massive collaboration of some of the biggest names in media, technology and civil society to restore trust and transparency in the digital ecosystem. At a time when deepfakes can fool even the trained eye, Content Credentials – which act as a “nutrition label” for digital content – have become the global standard for content provenance, providing insight into the origin and process of content creation. . Tamper-proof metadata can be attached to digital content and information such as who created it and how it was created – including whether artificial intelligence played a role – can be displayed. This information not only gives creators credit for their work, but also protects them from anyone wanting to reuse their work without giving proper credit.
Content credentials are already supported in Adobe applications such as Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe Express. They are also gaining significant momentum across the industry, with implementation spreading to Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok and OpenAI, among others.
In addition to the technical solutions, Adobe believes there is also work to be done at the policy level. With some generative AIs, it only takes a few clicks for a bad actor in the market to impersonate a specific creator. It is very important that we put in place regulations and protections to help protect authors’ rights. Adobe is defending a federal law against impersonation that can help protect the style and work of creators in the age of artificial intelligence.
By putting creators at the center, Adobe is setting an example for the entire industry to follow. To learn more about Adobe’s approach to generative artificial intelligence with Firefly, visit the Adobe website.