An extra toe is like a representation of where we are beginning.”But when the brand announced that the collection was designed using generative AI, backlash was immediate.
In the year since she finalized designs for this drop, public opinion of AI art has shifted significantly.
As generative AI tools become more sophisticated, the use of AI in art has also become increasingly polarizing.
Of course, not all generative AI is exploitative; as a VFX tool, it’s immensely useful to enhance animations, from creating more realistic flames in Pixar’s “Elemental” to visualizing complex scenes in HBO’s “The Last Of Us.” There are plenty of examples of morally bankrupt applications of generative AI.
But most of the generative AI debate settles into a morally gray area, where the parameters of exploitation are less defined.
The latest is Recraft, an AI graphic design generator aimed at professionals, which has raised a $12 million Series A round led by Khosla Ventures in Silicon Valley, together with former GitHub CEO, Nat Friedman.
Admittedly there are now myriad Generative AI design tools out there, such as Jasper, Adobe Sensei, Let’s Enhance, and many others.
And then you generate images using this style of reference.
But to date, many of the generative AI design solutions have been targeting consumers, rather than professionals that require high degrees of control.
Recraft delivers on professional workflows such as vector images, style controls and end-to-end content production, all powered by in-house built foundation models.”
Getty Images, the stock media company, announced a new service this week at CES 2024 that leverages AI models trained on Getty’s iStock stock photography and video libraries to generate new licensable images and artwork.
The launch of Generative AI by iStock — Getty’s second gen AI tool — comes as the copyright debate over AI heats up.
Some companies developing gen AI apps argue that they’re protected by fair use doctrine, at least in the U.S.
Generative AI by iStock has a policy along those lines, too — presumably as a last resort of sort.
Any licensed visual that a Generative AI by iStock customer generates comes with $10,000 in legal coverage, Getty says.
PhotoRoom — a startup out of Paris, France — has built a popular AI-based image editing app and API targeting e-commerce vendors, media specialists, and others.
Multiple sources say that the startup is raising between $50 million and $60 million on a pre-money valuation of between $500 million and $600 million.
PhotoRoom, and Matthieu Rouif, the CEO who co-founded PhotoRoom with CTO Eliot Andres, declined to comment on any funding-related questions.
Adding all this together, since its last round in 2022, when it raised $19 million, PhotoRoom has been blowing up.
Most categories of apps, she wrote, are still up for grabs; and within the popular area of AI image-based tools, apps like PhotoRoom, in her opinion, have a shot at success.
Sony is breaking new ground in the ongoing NFTs and content authenticity saga.
While it might not strictly be termed an NFT, it resembles the core concept of these non-fungible tokens.
We’re collaborating with the Associated Press and other industry leaders to create a digital birth certificate for images shot on our cameras.
The technology, designed to be integrated into the camera’s hardware – starting with the new Alpha 9 Mark III camera, generates a machine-based digital signature when an image is captured.
So, while Sony hasn’t literally launched an in-camera NFT, they’ve certainly created a system that mirrors the core functionality of an NFT – proving ownership and authenticity in the digital space.
Not uncommonly, KYC authentication involves “ID images,” or cross-checked selfies used to confirm a person is who they say they are.
There’s no evidence that gen AI tools have been used to fool a real KYC system — yet.
But the ease with which relatively convincing deepfaked ID images is cause for alarm.
Feeding deepfaked KYC images to an app is even easier than creating them.
The takeaway is that KYC, which was already hit-or-miss, could soon become effectively useless as a security measure.
With the FTC’s increasing focus on the misuse of biometric surveillance, Rite Aid fell firmly in the government agency’s crosshairs.
And companies such as Clearview AI, meanwhile, have been hit with lawsuits and fines around the world for major data privacy breaches around facial recognition technology.
The FTC’s latest findings regarding Rite Aid also shines a light on inherent biases in AI systems.
Additionally, the FTC said that Rite Aid failed to test or measure the accuracy or their facial recognition system prior to, or after, deployment.
“The allegations relate to a facial recognition technology pilot program the Company deployed in a limited number of stores,” Rite Aid said in its statement.
Instagram introduced its generative AI-powered background editing tool to U.S.-based users Wednesday.
Meta’s lead for generative AI Ahmad Al-Dahle posted on Threads saying that the tool will let users change the background to their images through prompts for Stories.
Earlier this week, Snapchat released a new tool for its paying users that let them create and send AI-generated images.
Earlier this year, the social network rolled out the ability for Snapchat+ users to populate prompt-based backgrounds.
At the same time, the company also launched a standalone AI-image generator called Imagine with Meta, powered by its own model called Emu.
Google’s making the second generation of Imagen, its AI model that can create and edit images given a text prompt, more widely available — at least to Google Cloud customers using Vertex AI who’ve been approved for access.
Text and logo generation brings Imagen in line with other leading image-generating models, like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 and Amazon’s recently launched Titan Image Generator.
These techniques also enhance Imagen 2’s multilingual understanding, Google says — allowing the model to translate a prompt in one language to an output (e.g.
Google didn’t reveal the data that it used to train Imagen 2, which — while disappointing — doesn’t exactly come as a surprise.
Instead, Google offers an indemnification policy that protects eligible Vertex AI customers from copyright claims related both to Google’s use of training data and Imagen 2 outputs.
Apple announced a new 4k tv last week, but it’s not the only hi-tech company that’s been busy unveiling new products. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all unveiled new products this…
