Magma, an online art collaboration platform, will soon kick off an open beta of its new tool, Magma AI. This new AI tool offers an ethical way to use AI in art, like blocking the AI from using art unless the artist specifically grants permission to do so.  

Artists across the Internet condemn AI art generators, such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, for stealing art to train models and imitating artists’ styles without compensation. AI models are trained to create art by imitating real-life artists—who won’t see a penny of the profits made by AI. Unfortunately for artists with these concerns, AI art generators are here to stay. Microsoft committed to investing billions of dollars into projects like AI, and Adobe is working to add AI into their online platforms.

Magma sets itself apart from other AI art generators by putting some power back into artists’ hands. Magma is a browser application that allows artists to illustrate collaboratively with others on the same canvas. Think of it as a mix of creating art in Procreate (developed by Savage Interactive) along with the collaboration power of Google Docs. Now, Magma is adding a new tool to the program: AI designed to support artists.

Magma AI will allow users to generate art like all the big-name artists, only with some key differences. When users are prompting the AI to generate art, Magma AI doesn’t allow the prompt to contain an artist’s name unless that artist specifically allows it. For example, a common AI prompt is to create art that looks like Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s art. Unless Miyazaki tells the Magma AI that this is allowed, users will not be able to use the tech to generate imagery in his specific art style.

Art that is created with AI will also be flagged as being AI-created. This adds transparency and legitimacy to the art on Magma that users personally create. Generated pieces also include what prompts were used to generate a specific art piece in case a user wants to trademark their generated piece for legal reasons.

“Art and the process of making art is always evolving. AI is just one more tool to augment, not replace, creativity. What is most important to Magma (a platform created by artists) is protecting artists and their work,” said Damian Kaczmarek, CEO of Magma. “Our goal is to provide an all-in-one solution for artists, which in the future needs to include an ethical AI solution.”