The company behind Procreate Dreams, an animation app that anyone can use to create 2D animations and breathtaking stories on iPad says Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things.

Savage Interactive, the company that developed Procreate, a complete art studio for iPad that allows users to create expressive sketches, rich paintings, and gorgeous illustrations anywhere, but also the animation app Procreate Dreams for iPad and Procreate Pocket for iPhone, has launched a new page on its website stating the company’s position about the use of Generative AI, with a clear title: “AI is not our future.”

We’re never going there. Creativity is made, not generated.
You can read more at https://t.co/9Fgh460KVu ✨ #procreate #noaiart pic.twitter.com/AnLVPgWzl3

— Procreate (@Procreate) August 18, 2024

This happens as James Cuda, the CEO for Procreate, publishes a video on X stating that “I really fxxking hate generative AI” adding that he really does not like what’s happening in the industry and “I don’t like what it’s doing to artists. We’re not going to be introducing any generative AI into our products.” The video triggered an intense conversation and exchange of messages between those who are pro and against the use of generative AI.

Gen-AI is a threat to human creativity

Although James Cuda states, in the video, that he does not know where the story will go, some believe Procreate is just trying to attract the attention of the anti-gen AI crowds to its products, as some artists feel they can no longer use creative software from companies as Canva (that recently acquired Affinity) or Adobe, who have introduced – lots – of gen-AI features in their products.

The Procreate page dedicated to the company’s position on Generative AI notes that “Creativity is made, not generated”, and explains that “Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future. We think machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the path generative AI is on is wrong for us.”

According to Procreate, “We’re here for the humans. We’re not chasing a technology that is a moral threat to our greatest jewel: human creativity. In this technological rush, this might make us an exception or seem at risk of being left behind. But we see this road less travelled as the more exciting and fruitful one for our community.”

While some believe that the adoption of AI is nothing more than a new step in terms of technology, comparing it to the move from pen and paper to tablets and wireless stylus, others believe there is a huge difference, as tablets by themselves do not “recreate” art. In fact, it’s not even about recreating, because much of what AI appears to do is copy from what is available, made by humans, and recycle it into something that, many times, is bad.

Nick Cave on the use of AI in music

Yes, there is a place for AI, but one must wonder what will happen if you remove the original human creativity from the equation. If the online image generation services (Midjourney, OpenAI and others) did not have access to work from artists – apparently used without permission in many cases – what would gen-AI create? In fact, if we remove the human element in the future, and gen-A continues to use its own “creations” only, will there be any use for words as “art” and creativity”?

One recent example of the problems this AI rush creates comes from Nick Cave – his new album with the Bad Seeds, White God, will be released on August 30th – that in an interview with The Australian, mentioned by the Rolling Stone magazine, “voiced his fear that AI will have a “humiliating effect” on the creative industries” adding that the AI music generator Suno  is “utterly banal” with “no soul or spirit”. The Australian also shared a video with Nick Cave’s opinion on AI where he says: “that we will just accept what is fed to us through these things; that we’ll be in awe of the banal. That, to me, is the direction that it’s going.”

Nick Cave was also at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert recently, and during the interview he mentions that “there’s forces out there that that are expressly designed to take the creative act away from us, especially with AI as it’s coming out at the moment to create music as simply a product and to take away the creative experience”, which, he adds, “is seen as a sort of impediment on the road to the product itself”.