"Spongebob Squarepants meets Godzilla" – a Dall-E 2 text-to-image prompt shared on Twitter(Image credit: @NAveryW on Twitter)
If there was one buzzword during the opening keynote of Adobe MAX 2022 this year, it was AI. The company announced a slew of new features across its entire product suite, and most of them involved the Adobe Sensei machine learning engine. But just as notable as Adobe's AI focus this year was its eagerness to acknowledge the creative community's concerns about the tech.
New AI tools hitting Creative Cloud include Photoshop's photo restoration and background replacement tools, along with one-click colour correction in Premiere Pro and text-to-image prompts for Adobe Express. But for the first time during a MAX keynote, Adobe dedicated almost as much airtime to its sense of responsibility with AI tech as it did to the features themselves. (Check out the best Adobe Creative Cloud deals if you're ready to get creating.)
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen addressed concerns at Adobe MAX 2022 (Image credit: Future)
Even before going into detail about those scarily impressive new Photoshop AI tools, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen described how the company is determined to develop "AI for social good" – and as part of that commitment, it has now made Adobe Express entirely free for non-profits.
Addressing the fear that AI could one day replace artists, Adobe's chief product officer Scott Belsky then described how AI should only ever be "your co-pilot in creative endeavours." He said Adobe wanted to develop its AI offering thoughtfully, "approaching the idea from a creator-centric perspective. We want it to benefit creatives, not replace them."
New Photoshop AI tools include one-click delete (Image credit: Adobe)
The sentiment was echoed by Adobe's director of product management Bryan O'Neil Hughes, who told Creative Bloq, "We're very mindful of how we approach AI, and we have a large team of people looking into it. It's important to know what's real and what isn't."
AI art can be pretty scary(Image credit: Supercomposite)
Perhaps the most tangible aspect of Adobe's commitment to helping users know what's "real" is the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), which seeks to fight misinformation and add a layer of verifiable trust to all types of digital content. Today, Adobe announced that it has partnered with camera manufacturers Leica and Nikon to implement provenance technology directly into their cameras.
With the advent of text-to-image generators like Dall-E 2, many artists have expressed distain for the concept of AI art, including illustrator and Adobe design evangelist Kyle T Webster (above). While it's clear that AI art isn't going anywhere, it's heartening to know that the likes of Adobe are listening.
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Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles.
