simply Generative AI by Getty Images: Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Generating Artificial Intelligence (Getty Images)

Called simply Generative AI by Getty Images, the tool is paywalled on the Getty.com website. It will also be available through an API, so Getty customers can plug it into other apps. The tool was designed for commercial use, so a photo editor or marketer might need to find a generic image of a sneaker or a phone rather than using a straight stock image in order to prompt the tool to generate something new. It doesn’t think news organizations will use it.

Getty CEO Craig Peters will be at this year’s Code conference on September 26th and 27th. You can apply here to attend Code in person or go here for virtual tickets.

Generative AI by Getty Images: a Hint from DALL-E 3 at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna-Niguel, September 26-27

I got a hands-on look at Generative AI by Getty Images and got to play around with the tool for a bit. I wanted to see if it could get close to an actual picture of a water mark, rather than illustrations. And the photos look better than expected. Stock photos already have an artificial, soulless quality to them, and I was not surprised that some of the first few images the tool generated also felt… devoid of feeling. This feeling isn’t exclusive to Getty’s generative AI tool; the photos generated by the upcoming DALL-E 3 from OpenAI made me think the same.

The Getty tool does limit what types of images users can generate. I could have created a photo of Joe Biden in front of the White House, but it wouldn’t let me. Any prompt with the name of an actual person was prohibited. Asking for an image of the president of the United States yielded pictures of both men and women, some of whom were people of color, in front of the US flag. The company told The Verge the model “doesn’t know who Andy Warhol, Joe Biden, or any other real-world person is” because it doesn’t want to manipulate or recreate real-life events.

The event that brings together the most influential voices in tech is back for 2023. Code returns with new hosts at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel September 26th–27th. Apply to attend here or grab a virtual ticket.

The Getty Images Pledge: What is the Morale of Using Copyrighted Material to Train AI Language Models and Text-to-Image Systems?

The use of copyrighted material to train large language models and text-to-image systems has been a big concern for many in the creative community. Three artists previously sued Stability AI, Midjourney, and art website DeviantArt for using their art without permission to train its models.

Getty said customers can eventually add their own data to train the model and generate images with their brand style. This feature and other services will be available later this year.

Earlier this year, the stock-photo service provider Getty Images sued Stability AI over what Getty said was the misuse of more than 12 million Getty photos in training Stability’s AI photo-generation tool, Stable Diffusion.

Questions about the ethics of training an artificial intelligence model for more than twenty years of photographers’ images and how companies will pay those photographers arise out of this plunge into the Artificial Intelligence photo pool.