According to Axios (opens in new tab), Adobe is now allowing images created using AI art tools like Midjourney and DALL-E to be sold on stock image site Adobe Stock (opens in new tab). As someone who always uses the ridiculous stock images (opens in new tab) in articles, this may make my job a little easier, but more importantly, as the company expands this aspect of its business, it is stepping into a morally and legally gray area.

Adobe requires artists who submit AI-generated images to follow the same process as other artists when uploading their images to the site.

AI art production tools scour the Internet for thousands of images and train algorithms to produce images that mimic a particular style based on parameters entered by the user. In other words, if you want an image of "a Picasso-like portrait of Obi-Wan Kenobi (opens in new tab)," the AI will do so. This is also how our own Dave James trained the AI in stable diffusion to paint like his uncle, Hellman (opens in new tab).

Profiting from art generated for you by an AI rather than technically created by you has been a hot topic recently. For example, someone won an art competition (open in new tab) in September using AI and said they "broke no rules." There is also growing concern that AI may one day replace commercial artists (opens in new tab).

Sarah Casillas, a senior director at Adobe, told Axios that she was "pleasantly surprised" by the images submitted and that they met the company's "quality standards." Adobe also said that it would compensate anyone who purchased AI-generated stock images if that particular image faced legal issues. Adobe requires that artists have "appropriate rights to the work" they submit.

But not all stock image sites are willing to take that legal risk. The CEO of Getty Images told The Verge (opens in new tab) that Getty will not allow AI-generated images to be uploaded or sold ("real concerns about copyright of output from these models and unaddressed rights issues with the images").