Adobe: Take user data to train generative AI models? We'd never do that

Adobe chief product officer Scott Belsky has responded to criticism of the company's content analysis policies by saying it has never used customers' creations to train generative AI models. Artists were furious to learn Adobe could automatically analyze their audio, video or text documents stored on its cloud servers to …

[alain williams]

If you have data in someone else's coud ...

then you lose control of it.

Part of the reason that I will have nothing to do with the subscription madness that Adobe & others are forcing on its customers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If you have data in someone else's coud ...

Spot on - I never understood how anybody can claim to be GDPR compliant when they don't even know where there data is stored, let alone who has access to it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If you have data in someone else's coud ...

Even with subscription software data can stay local - and even with non subscription software they can analyze your local data if they wish. It's not the same problem.

[Woodnag]

Re: If you have data in someone else's coud ...

“We have never, ever used anything in our storage to train a generative AI model,” Belsky said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg. “Not once.”

Ok, it's somewhere else then.

[Tams]

Re: If you have data in someone else's coud ...

Of course, but the other poster was using hyperbole to demonstrate how these corporations can't be trusted.

Hmmm, maybe the Americanisation of this site is seeping too deep...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If you have data in someone else's coud ...

Agreed.

My hesitancy was having to pay Adobe until i died/went bankrupt in order to keep the tools we learned over years.

An analogy would be if a carpenter was told he must now pay monthly for his hammer, plane and saw. The carpenter would stick two fingers up and continue with his craft which is what we did for a further six years.

Now in retirement its strange how cracking open that last iteration of permanent license photoshop makes me feel a bit queasy but using photopea online is actually thrilling , …..amazing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if Adobe weren't planning to do this (Porcine Air on runway 5), push from those who are paying the bill i.e. the accountants not the creatives, will see them doing it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiight.

So they changed their license to explicitly state they were scanning and ripping your content on their cloud storage for AI that they were building.

They set of a giant firestorm(Foreseeable, stuck face in blender anyway)

AFTER the firestorm they decide to state they didn't mean THAT kind of AI. We'd never do THAT kind of AI with your IP that we stole. And if we did we'd ask you to opt it.

Not like this "other" kind of AI that they ARE doing.

The one that they bend over backwards to avoid talking about the details of, the one that they made opt out after re-writing the save file dialog for all of their products to aggressively try to move your work to their cloud storage with every file iteration. (I think the Reddit install our App nagware is the only thing that annoys me as much as Adobe creative cloud, and Adobe is way more dangerous. Reddit can't hurt anything but your mind if you just don't install the app.)

And CC/Adobe is cancer now. Shady at every level, it Adobe users that aren't using it's site or software, uses every dark pattern for shady and occasionally fraudulent billing, impossible to cancel subscriptions, garbage plug-ins that install themselves in your browser even if you uninstall them. Bloatware that loads at boot time that also re-installs itself at every program launch. Uninstallers that don't uninstall the application, special uninstall tools that also don't uninstall the garbage the regular installer leaves behind. Tech support that could not give less F**KS and will literally transfer your ticket to a call center on the other side of the world so they are closed during your business hours and will send on reply a day in the hopes you will just give up.

So you might get the impression that I take their claims with a grain of salt, and look forward to the class action lawsuits.

[My-Handle]

Re: Riiight.

I agree, adobe's software is much more focussed on keeping it's user base via abusive practices than by actually being a good product.

My main issue with CC was down to bandwidth. I live out in the sticks, on a 2Mbps connection. I bought photoshop (business requirement) and tried to install it. Not only did it insist on downloading half a dozen different bits of Creative Cloud before I could even start installing photoshop, but it swamped my internet connection for hours while it did so... then timed out and failed the installation at about 80%. Could I restart the download from where it left off? No.

I contacted Adobe customer support and asked if there was an offline installer I could use (one that I could download from a different location and bring home), but I was flatly told "No. Get a faster internet connection". Damn, I wish I'd thought of that. I eventually found an offline installer that some kind soul had left a link to on a forum. It was even still on Adobe's servers.

Even once installed, Creative Cloud kept trying to update it's products on an aggressively regular basis, downloading gigabytes of data each time, swamping our internet connection. Seriously, even basic websites wouldn't load on any other machine on the network. Photoshop got relegated to a laptop that ended up spending most of it's time offline, just to keep the connection in a working order.

Adobe's general software design is built around actively abusing the user base who paid to be there, out of a misguided idea that it makes it hard to leave. In my case it made it almost impossible to use. I can completely believe that they'd pull a stunt like this and actively lie about it.

Apologies for the rant.

[TVU]

Adobe: Take user data to train generative AI models? We'd never do that

Then the logical thing to do is switch away from snooping Adobe products and I strongly suspect that Serif's Affinity software range, PhotoLine, QuarkXPress, Canva, etc, are going to do rather well over the next few months.

PS Please note that Figma is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Adobe Corporation.

[My-Handle]

Re: Adobe: Take user data to train generative AI models? We'd never do that

I now use Affinity for basic image work for websites. My other half uses it, along with other software, for photo editing. I can recommend it.

[Gene Cash]

Weasel words!

saying it has never used customers' creations to train generative AI models

That says they HAVEN'T, not that they won't in the future.

Also, there are other AI models, not just generative ones.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Weasel words!

Yeah, the way that license change seemed worded implied they could be building them. It certainly was phrased in a way that they could.

They also don't say what they ARE doing with it, or provided anything resembling to transparency. Or good notice and controls to users or admins.