On Sunday, Procreate CEO James Cuda took to X to make clear his hatred for generative AI and that the company is "not gonna be introducing any generative AI into [its] products."
In the video, Cuda said, "I don't like what's happening in the industry, and I don't like what it's doing to artists." When you head to Procreate's AI page, it boldly reads, "Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things." Our own Rael Hornby expressed a similar sentiment recently, believing AI may be solving all the wrong problems and making conversations with real people too impersonal.
Procreate isn't against machine learning. In fact, the company calls it "a compelling technology with a lot of merit." And the company hasn't explicitly said there won't be any AI integrated into Procreate, only generative AI will be omitted entirely.
The company says, "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."
And the community? Well, most people seem to love Procreate's bold decision.
People love the idea of no generative AI in Procreate
The comments section on Procreate's X post is extremely positive at the moment. Sebastiaan de With ( @sdw ) says, "I love you all. An example in our community," and Rohan Tandon ( @lucidstarfield ) writes, "Thank you for championing human creativity and building tools to amplify it."
While it'd be impossible to relay every comment made, the general sentiment among most commenters was 'Great job, Procreate. Keep it up.'
There were a few others casting doubt on Procreate's decision, specifically because of how heavily generative AI is integrated among competing platforms. One user (@Dshoopy0) writes, "Bankruptcy [or] backtracking, that's how the story ends."
Another user ( @aravindputrevu ) retweeted Procreate's post with this comparison: "This like [rejecting] Cars for Human-pulled Rickshaws!" The user suggested a few productive ways AI could be used in Procreate, like suggesting how to pick a brush from the huge catalog. Because that's not a generative AI feature, it could very well be an AI feature Procreate integrates in the future.
The conversation similarly continues on Reddit , with one user reposting the video and saying, "Let's take a moment to appreciate this statement." To be fair, this is posted on r/ProCreate, where many fans and users of Procreate interact, but a thread with essentially no negative comments, even in a fan community, is still remarkable.
One Redditor ( _Miskatonic_Student_ ) hops on the backtracking conversation, saying "I applaud their stance and hope they don't backtrack later. ProCreate is a wonderful app and it would be tragic to spoil it down the road if Apple [pressures] them in any way."
It'll definitely be interesting to see whether Procreate expands compatibility for its app, branching out from just Apple's operating systems, but it doesn't seem likely that Apple would force Procreate to use generative AI.
There will be AI growing pains as users and companies draw their respective lines in the sand and decide which tasks can comfortably be handed over to AI and which need to retain a human element.
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