Procreate CEO ‘Really F*cking’ Hates Generative AI

If you’ve been paying attention this past year, it seems every app—from Adobe’s Photoshop to Canva—is chasing the white rabbit that is AI. James Cuda, the CEO of iPad-centric illustration app Procreate, came out swinging Sunday with a simple statement: “I really f*cking hate generative AI.”

In a statement posted to Twitter, 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 going to be introducing any generative AI into our products.”

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

The company’s page about its plans for AI is similarly acerbic. It reiterates many of the same complaints artists, illustrators, graphic designers, and other creatives have had about AI art generators. 

The largest AI models are built on top of billions of scraped images from the web, including the copyrighted work of thousands of professional and amateur artists. Some anti-AI advocates have even suggested that artists poison their images to disrupt AI training.

On its page, Procreate says, “Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future.” Procreate claims it does not have access to users’ art and does not track users’ activity.

Artists Throw Their Support Behind Procreate for Anti-AI Arguments

Artists online praised Procreate, especially highlighting Cuda’s blunt phrasing. Concept artist Karla Ortiz wrote, “Now THIS is how a company for artists supports artists.” Director and artist Jorge Gutierrez wrote, “Procreate 1, Adobe 0.”

Now THIS is how a company for artists supports artists! By respecting and empowering them, NOT by taking advantage of them! Good on Procreate for being on the right side of history, and looking forward to whatever the team does next 🙌 https://t.co/l7qvHdOPwO

— Karla Ortiz (@kortizart) August 19, 2024

We’ve seen some companies that seemed originally hesitant or even hostile to AI eventually come around to extoll its virtues (whatever those may be). Getty Images previously sued Stable Diffusion makers Stability AI for using the stock photo sites’ images without permission. A few months later, it introduced its AI image generator onto the platform. The company claimed the AI model was built solely with images the company controls.

Getty isn’t alone there. Shutterstock and Adobe Stock also created their own AI image generators based on images each owns the rights to. The companies effectively grandfathered in every existing creator who shared their work on the stock image sites and promised to pay them some more money for using their images for AI. 

Adobe Has Taken Heat for its Firefly AI Model

Artists online have compared Procreate’s anti-AI message to Adobe, a company that has practically drowned its products in AI features. The company has pushed Photoshop’s Firefly AI image generator hard over the past months, expanding its photo expansion capabilities and access among compatible platforms. That model is based on images taken from Adobe Stock, though a Bloomberg report from April revealed the model also incorporates other AI images into its training set.

Despite claims it’s only using content it owns, the company has been desperate to patch up relations with artists. In June, the company modified its terms of service to imply it might take users’ images and use them to train AI. It modified its TOS to clarify it won’t “train generative AI models on your or your customers’ content unless you’ve submitted the content to the Adobe Stock marketplace.”

Last year, several high-profile artists sued big AI companies, including the makers of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, alleging the AI companies stole their copyrighted work without permission. Last week, the California judge supervising the case, William Orrick, let the case move forward into discovery.