Adobe’s AI Might Train on Your Creative Content

Adobe’s new terms of service allow the company to use Creative Cloud users’ creative content to train its AI.

• This policy allows Adobe to use creative works for AI model training without credit or compensation.
• Adobe asserts rights over any content saved in Creative Cloud, including reviewing, publishing, or selling it.

Adobe’s AI may now train on your creative content that is saved in the Creative Cloud, taking advantage of its user base and market dominance.

When they opened any of the Adobe software, users were greeted with a notification, informing them of the updated terms and conditions.

Mind the Language

The General Terms of Use cite that Adobe’s “automated systems may analyze your Content and Creative Cloud Customer Fonts (defined in section 3.10 (Creative Cloud Customer Fonts) below) using techniques such as machine learning in order to improve our Services and Software and the user experience.”

The vague language alludes to the fact that Adobe will be using users’ bodies of work as AI model training material without credit or compensation, among other things as well. In summary, if you save your creative content on Adobe’s Creative Cloud, the software company asserts some rights over it, especially as AI training data. This includes reviewing it for content moderation, manually reviewing it (human reviewer), publishing it, giving it away for free, selling it to third parties, and using it to train their AI model.

You can’t opt out of this. And even if you store your work locally, on your device, Content-Aware Fill and other non-specified tools will require uploading the piece to their servers. If you don’t agree to the new terms of service, you’ll be locked out. And here’s the kicker, it doesn’t matter if the creative content is published, non-published, in-progress, or even confidential and protected by a non-disclosure agreement. Essentially, Adobe will be stepping over the users’ copyrights and using its creative suits as a data buffet for its AI.

Adobe’s Way or the Highway

The wording of the policy is vague, especially around the use of AI. This vagueness has everyone concerned over their data and AI’s use of their work. AI, training material, and copyrights over their creative content are sensitive topics currently among artists and writers.

With these practices that don’t give users the freedom to keep using Adobe while protecting their copyrights, Adobe is breaking their users’ trust. The popular sentiment among artists is outrage and willingness to move to another software. An X user even provided a list of alternatives. However, Adobe’s various applications are some of the best out there. To some, its software is irreplaceable. So, this has left users stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do they move, or do they risk having their creative content used as AI fodder?

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