Prompt: A single image, a black background with white text conveying a sense of gravity. The text is a blandly phrased corporate apology, a vague explanation, and a promise to do better.
Over the past few months, major brands including Coca-Cola, Ikea, Wacom, and Hasbro have used AI-generated imagery in their products and promotional materials. Sometimes this use of new technology passes with little comment, and other times it faces fierce backlash from artists and customers.
So when does a company owe an apology for using art generated by artificial intelligence? The short answer is that it’s all about context.
As a photo editor for Fast Company, I can understand the temptations set out by this new tech, maybe more than most. AI image generators like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion burst into the public consciousness in 2022 with a new way to produce imagery quickly, cheaply, and with amazing results (if you don’t look too closely). The promise of having any image you can imagine delivered in seconds, limited only by your own descriptive abilities, at virtually no cost should be tantalizing to someone responsible for sourcing a large number of images each day, often under tight deadlines. It should be irresistible.
