Getty Images, one of the world's leading suppliers of stock images, announced at CES 2024 the launch of Generative AI by iStock. The revolutionary generative AI tool is designed to empower users and businesses to turn creative visions into impactful content while remaining affordable.
In the past year or so, AI image generators have been a real talking point across the digital imaging industry. The rapid advance of producing lifelike images has resulted in growing concern that it will one day be impossible to differentiate between real and computer-generated content.
Canon, Nikon and Sony have banded together in a fight against fake images, to release tech that provides a certificate of authenticity, and photo competitions require entrants to be transparent about whether they've used AI during any stage. But despite the worries of photographers, text-to-image generation looks like it's here to stay.
Powered by Nvidia Picasso, a cutting-edge foundry for custom generative AI models in visual design, Generative AI by iStock is trained exclusively on Getty Images' high-quality content and creative libraries. This prevents the inadvertent generation of known products, people, places, or other copyrighted elements that so many text-to-image generators are liable for.
The result is a tool that instills confidence in businesses by providing 100% legal, usable content. And Getty Images is so confident in it, that images even come with US$10,000 (about AU$15,00) of legal coverage should any issues arise.
One of the main issues with images created by Midjourney or DALL•E 3 (which is now powered by ChatGPT) is that they both scrape information, including artists' work, from the web without permission. This means that if you type in a prompt that even slightly resembles something well-known, you're likely to get images that look familiar.
Gary Marcus, an AI expert, recently put this theory to the test by using prompts such as "video game hedgehog" and "yellow 3D cartoon character with goggles and overalls" – the images produced were almost identical to Sonic the Hedgehog and Minions.
As this innovative tool seamlessly integrates with iStock’s extensive library of authentic and commercially-ready imagery, it is trained with millions of licensed photos, illustrations, and videos – so there is no risk of copyright infringement. Generative AI by iStock opens up multiple avenues for customers to find the perfect visuals for various needs, including social media, blog posts, online promotions, print marketing, newsletters and more.
"Our main goal with Generative AI by iStock is to provide customers with an easy and affordable option to use AI in their creative process, without fear that something that is legally protected has snuck into the dataset and could end up in their work," said Grant Farhall, iStock's chief product officer.
Customers can download and license any generated visual with legal indemnification at no extra cost, offering a cost-effective entry point to explore commercially safe generative AI for their marketing initiatives. And iStock is taking it a step further by enabling advanced generative AI features through APIs, facilitating easy integration into creative applications and plugins, and enabling users to modify images as needed.
Generative AI by iStock is now available in 75 languages for all iStock customers. To learn more and sign up, visit iStock's Generative AI page.
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