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Artificial intelligence
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Getty Images to launch artificial intelligence image generator, feeding on its own stock photos

  • The move is part of the company’s attempt to create AI content while sidestepping thorny legal issues such as copyrights
  • The new tool will tap Getty’s bank of creative images, but not its news photo collection, part of an effort to prevent the creation of deepfakes

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A Getty Images stock photo showing robots at a factory in China. Photo: VCG via Getty Images
Bloomberg
Photography giant Getty Images Holdings is releasing an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that will generate images from the company’s vast content library – an attempt to create AI content free of the copyright and ownership concerns that have plagued the technology so far.
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Getty, which holds the rights to millions of photographs, earlier sued Stability AI, the company that popularised the image generator Stable Diffusion, for using images without permission.

Getty’s new product, developed with chipmaker Nvidia, will be trained Getty’s own data and will endeavour to sidestep thorny legal issues, in part, by limiting what images will power the generator.

The new tool will tap Getty’s bank of creative images, but not its news photo collection, part of an effort to prevent the creation of deepfakes, chief executive officer Craig Peters said.

An example of Getty Images’ artificial intelligence image-generator. Photo: Getty Images via AP
An example of Getty Images’ artificial intelligence image-generator. Photo: Getty Images via AP

The new image generator will not allow users to incorporate trademarked material or assets they do not own – so there is no way to create something like the viral Pope Francis wearing a Balenciaga puffer coat image, Peters said.

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In order to cater to businesses looking to create ads and other content, Getty will allow customers to add their own proprietary data or branding. Content generated through the product, which will create images based on text prompts, will not be added back into Getty’s own libraries.

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