Technology/Artificial Intelligence: In a surprising new report, Adobe’s Firefly AI image generator allegedly used thousands of images created by competitors like Midjourney in its training data.
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The details:
The report reveals that around 5% of the images used to train Firefly were AI-generated, including some created by rival Midjourney.
Adobe has promoted Firefly as a "commercially safe" option, claiming it was trained primarily on licensed images from its own Adobe Stock library.
Adobe defended the practice, stating that all images (including the AI-generated ones) underwent a moderation process.
There has reportedly been internal disagreement within Adobe, with employees questioning the ethics of using AI imagery for training.
Why it matters: While Adobe positioned Firefly as an ethical, legally sound alternative to competitors, using Midjourney’s images in training data strongly undermines that primary selling point. It could also erode trust among its artist and enterprise customers — who were likely drawn to what now seems like false promises.