With only a few phrases, AI fashions could be prompted to create a narrative, a picture, or perhaps a quick movie. But in line with Weber Wong, these fashions are all “made by non-creatives for different non-creatives to really feel inventive.”
In different phrases, they’re not constructed for precise inventive 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 inventive instruments needs to be greater than toys for producing AI slop” and describing Wong and his staff as “obsessive about constructing an influence software that can profoundly form the way forward for inventive work.”
The manifesto positions Flora as one thing completely different from present AI instruments, which “make it straightforward to create, however lack inventive management,” and from present inventive software program, which supplies customers “management, however are unintuitive & time-consuming.”
Flora isn’t attempting to construct higher generative AI fashions. Wong argued that one of many startup’s key insights is that “fashions are usually not inventive instruments.” So as a substitute, Flora presents an “infinite canvas” that integrates with present fashions — it’s a visible interface the place customers can generate blocks of textual content, pictures, 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 assorted pictures, with every step and variation mapped out on the aforementioned canvas, which will also be shared for collaborative work with shoppers.
Wong informed me he needs Flora to be helpful to any and all artists and creatives, however the firm is initially centered on working with visible design companies. In reality, 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 inventive work,” say by making a brand design after which rapidly producing 100 variations. He in contrast it to the evolution of musical composition — the place Mozart “wanted a complete orchestra to play his music,” a musician immediately can get all of it carried out “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.” Determined to turn out to be the type of founder value investing in, he finally joined New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, a graduate program centered on utilizing know-how to create artwork.
When Flora launched an alpha model in August, Wong determined to “launch with an artwork mission that showcased our real-time AI know-how,” with the Flora homepage exhibiting a dwell feed from a GoPro digital camera 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 truth, Pentagram generated some controversy final 12 months when it used Midjourney to create the illustration type for a mission with the US authorities.
Wong stated that the place present fashions have been embraced by “AI natives,” he’s hoping Flora can win over the “AI curious,” and finally even turn out to be helpful sufficient that even “AI haters” really feel they’ve to provide it a attempt.
When I raised considerations that AI fashions could 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 will 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 advised that as a substitute, the startup will enable artists to unlock “new aesthetic and inventive potentialities,” in the identical approach Kodak’s Brownie digital camera reworked images by making it extra informal and accessible.
Flora isn’t disclosing funding particulars, however its backers embrace A16Z Games. The product is obtainable without cost with a restricted variety of tasks and generated content material, after which skilled pricing begins at $16 monthly.
