The boss of one of the planet’s most popular design apps has bucked the trend towards the growing use of generative AI, by vowing that his company won’t be introducing the technology to its products.
James Cuda, CEO of Procreate, was blunt in his views on a video posted from the company’s account on X, formerly Twitter, in which he declared: “I really (beep) hate generative AI”.
It sets Procreate in stark contrast to several of its main competitors – such as Adobe and Canva – who are already using generative AI tools in their software.
“Supporting Human Creativity”
Cuda took to X to address questions directed his way about whether Procreate would embrace AI.
His response was definitive. After declaring in no uncertain terms his opinion on generative AI, Cuda confirmed: “We’re not going to be introducing any generative AI into our products.”
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Doubling down on the company’s ‘Creativity is made, not generated’ mantra, Cuda goes on in the video to reiterate that Procreate’s products and apps are designed and developed specifically with human creativity in mind.
“We don’t exactly know where this story’s gonna go or how it ends,” he concludes. “But we believe that we’re on the right path supporting human creativity.”
We’re never going there. Creativity is made, not generated.
You can read more at https://t.co/9Fgh460KVu :sparkles: #procreate #noaiart pic.twitter.com/AnLVPgWzl3— Procreate (@Procreate) August 18, 2024
“Not Our Future”
Launched in 2011, Procreate has long been a favorite app of iOS-using designers and topped the chart in 2023 of Apple’s most downloaded paid iPad apps.
A page on the Procreate website titled ‘AI is not our future’ further addresses the company’s robust attitudes to a technology that it says is “ripping the humanity out of things” and “built on a foundation of theft”.
Clarifying its position, it says that the following three tenets represent where it stands:
- No generative AI: We deeply respect your hard-earned skills.
- Your work belongs to you: We do not have access to your art, by design.
- We take pride in privacy: Your activity is not tracked in our apps.
“We think machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the path generative AI is on is wrong for us… We’re here for the humans. We’re not chasing a technology that is a moral threat to our greatest jewel: human creativity.” – Procreate website
Procreate on a Different Path
The approach taken by Procreate sets it apart from that of some key competitors in the design software space.
In April, Adobe confirmed that it was adding AI tools to its Premier Pro video editing program. But the company faced a significant backlash when, in updating its Terms of Use at the start of June, it appeared to be forcing users into agree to allow their work to be used to train generative AI models. Adobe later clarified the position and issued a promise that content would never be used for that purpose.
And only a few weeks ago, Canva made its own trajectory apparent by buying AI start-up Leonardo.Ai.
