With just some phrases, AI fashions might be prompted to create a narrative, a picture, or perhaps a brief movie. However in line with Weber Wong, these fashions are all “made by non-creatives for different non-creatives to really feel artistic.”
In different phrases, they’re not constructed for precise artistic professionals. That’s one thing Wong is hoping to alter with Flora, a brand new startup the place he’s founder and CEO.
Flora launched this week, full with a manifesto declaring that “AI artistic instruments ought to be greater than toys for producing AI slop” and describing Wong and his staff as “obsessive about constructing an influence instrument that may profoundly form the way forward for artistic work.”
The manifesto positions Flora as one thing completely different from current AI instruments, which “make it simple to create, however lack artistic management,” and from current artistic software program, which provides customers “management, however are unintuitive & time-consuming.”
Flora isn’t making an attempt to construct higher generative AI fashions. Wong argued that one of many startup’s key insights is that “fashions aren’t artistic instruments.” So as an alternative, Flora affords an “infinite canvas” that integrates with current fashions — it’s a visible interface the place customers can generate blocks of textual content, photos, and video.
“The mannequin doesn’t matter, the know-how doesn’t matter,” Wong informed me “It’s concerning the interface.”
For instance, a person might begin by prompting Flora to create a picture of a flower, then ask for particulars concerning the picture, with these particulars resulting in extra prompts and various photos, with every step and variation mapped out on the aforementioned canvas, which will also be shared for collaborative work with purchasers.
Wong informed me he needs Flora to be helpful to any and all artists and creatives, however the firm is initially targeted on working with visible design businesses. The truth is, it’s iterating on the product with suggestions from designers at famed company Pentagram.
The aim, Wong stated, is to permit a designer at Pentagram to “simply do 100X extra artistic work,” say by making a emblem design after which shortly producing 100 variations. He in contrast it to the evolution of musical composition — the place Mozart “wanted a whole orchestra to play his music,” a musician can get all of it completed “from his storage in New Jersey with Ableton, making it himself and posting it on SoundCloud.”
Wong has a background in each artwork and know-how himself, having labored as an investor at Menlo Ventures however leaving when he realized, “I used to be not the particular person I’d again.” Decided to develop into the form of founder value investing in, he finally joined New York College’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, a graduate program targeted on utilizing know-how to create artwork.
When Flora launched an alpha model in August, Wong determined to “launch with an art project that showcased our real-time AI know-how,” with the Flora homepage displaying a stay feed from a GoPro digicam on Wong’s head, and web site guests getting the chance to make use of AI to stylize the footage after signing up for the Flora waitlist.
Given his background, Wong is aware of there are artists and professionals who’re skeptical and even vehemently against the usage of AI in artwork — in actual fact, Pentagram generated some controversy final yr when it used Midjourney to create the illustration fashion for a mission with the US authorities.
Wong stated that the place current fashions have been embraced by “AI natives,” he’s hoping Flora can win over the “AI curious,” and finally even develop into helpful sufficient that even “AI haters” really feel they’ve to present it a attempt.
Once I raised issues that AI fashions might be skilled with out regard for copyright and mental property, Wong famous that Flora isn’t coaching any AI fashions itself (as a result of it’s utilizing different firms’ fashions), including, “We are going to observe societal requirements.”
And whereas he’s enthusiastic about not wanting Flora for use to unleash a flood of AI slop (“We’re going to get hats that say ‘anti-AI slop’”), he steered that as an alternative, the startup will enable artists to unlock “new aesthetic and inventive prospects,” in the identical approach Kodak’s Brownie camera remodeled images by making it extra informal and accessible.
Flora isn’t disclosing funding particulars, however its backers embrace A16Z Video games. The product is accessible without spending a dime with a restricted variety of initiatives and generated content material, after which skilled pricing begins at $16 per 30 days.