Shutterstock to Offer AI-generated Stock Images Using OpenAI

Stock picture giant Shutterstock revealed Tuesday, Oct. 25, that OpenAI's text-to-image model DALL-E 2 would be effectively integrated into Shutterstock in the following months. This comes in line with the announcement of the companies' renewed partnership, The Verge reported.

Shutterstock is also reimbursing creators via a 'Contributor Fund' whenever the firm uses its work to train text-to-image AI (artificial intelligence) models. This is in response to massive backlash from creatives whose work was used in developing these systems but was taken off the internet without their permission.

Furthermore, Shutterstock will not allow the sale of any AI-generated artwork created without the use of its DALL-E integration.

Messages From the Bosses

Shutterstock's CEO Paul Hennessy sent a statement to the press. He said, via The Verge, that they recognize how channels to express creativity are constantly growing and increasing. He added that it is the company's duty to welcome such a change and make sure that the generative technology that fuels innovation is based on moral principles.

Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed their gratitude to Shutterstock for providing DALL-E photos to its clients as one of the first deployments via the application programming interface (API). They are looking forward to elevating their partnerships as AI becomes a fundamental part of artists' creative processes.

The Existing Partnership Between Shutterstock and OpenAI

Shutterstock and OpenAI have collaborated in the past, so this is not the first time they have worked together.

Shutterstock began selling photos and information to OpenAI in 2021 to help create DALL-E. OpenAI's Altman calls this data "critical to the training of DALL-E," according to The Verge.

DALL-E's output will now compete with the same people whose work was used to train it, thanks to the adoption of OpenAI's text-to-image AI, bringing the full collaboration circle.

The 'Contributor Fund'

If Shutterstock's photographs were as vital to DALL-E as Altman alleges, The Verge thinks that contributors may feel unhappy as their own material is being exploited to throw them out of work. This is why Shutterstock is establishing its 'Contributor Fund' to compensate artists, photographers, and designers when their submitted work is sold to OpenAI to construct generative AI models.

It is the first big endeavor by a platform holder to compensate artists in this manner, but it also highlights the legal and ethical problems surrounding this new technology. Scraping or purchasing data to train AI art generators is lawful (protected by Fair Use), but experts worry about potential difficulties.

While the firm believes it has no legal need to pay authors whose material is used to train DALL-E, the fund implies that Shutterstock may be anticipating criticism and reputational harm.

The tech firm claimed that these payments would be made every six months and would consist of profits from data partnerships and revenues from generic licensing on Shutterstock. However, it did not provide any indication of average compensation amounts.

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Written by Trisha Kae Andrada