Ethical questions on CCSF board campaign

Inside Adobe, some staff worry their AI tech will kill graphic designer jobs and undermine the company's business model: 'Is this what they want?'

Inside Adobe, there's a debate raging over new AI technology that threatens to kill jobs among a key group of customers and potentially undermine the company's business model.  

The software giant this year unveiled Firefly, a suite of generative AI tools that's rolling out across many of its products. Photoshop, Adobe's popular software for graphic designers, got an AI tool that lets users add or remove graphic elements, or extend a picture, with simple text prompts. 

Wall Street has mostly cheered these developments. The response from some Adobe employees has been less enthusiastic, according to internal messages viewed by Insider and interviews with employees.

One senior designer at Adobe recently wrote in an internal AI ethics Slack channel that a billboard and advertising business he knows plans to reduce the size of its graphic design team because of Photoshop's new text-to-image features.

"Is this what they want?" the person wrote.

Adobe has jumped into the AI race, putting itself in a tricky position. The company relies on graphic designers as customers and has helped make the industry more productive with powerful software. Now, though, this technology has become so potent that it might put some of these customers out of work. AI systems could eliminate 300 million jobs worldwide, including a quarter of those in the arts and design industries, Goldman Sachs estimated recently. 

Adobe's spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment.

Other messages in the Adobe Slack channel were more critical of the AI revolution, calling it "depressing" and an "existential crisis" for many designers. One person said some artists now feel like they are "slaves" to the AI algorithm, since their jobs will mostly involve just touching-up AI-generated work. 

Some had a more positive view. Photoshop made artists more productive, and AI will only increase their efficiency, they said. One person said many freelancers and hobbyists will benefit from the increased output, even if some companies reduce their design workforce.

"I don't think they should feel guilty for providing better and faster tools, as long as it's done ethically," that person wrote in the Slack channel.

Adobe isn't the only company with art-generating AI. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has developed DALL-E, which can create images from text prompts. Other startups, like Midjourney, StabilityAI, and Runway, have reached sky-high valuations based on similar image-generation technology.

But Adobe, with over $17 billion in annual sales, is by far the biggest of them. The company says it is pushing for responsible use of AI. For example, the company has stated that its Firefly AI models was trained on Adobe Stock images, "openly licensed content," and public domain content where copyright has expired. The company didn't respond to a question about what "openly licensed content" means in practice. Some artists have accused Adobe of using their work without express consent or proper compensation, according to VentureBeat.

The bigger question for some employees is AI's impact on Adobe's own business.

During an internal staff meeting in June, one employee asked whether generative AI was putting Adobe "in danger of cannibalizing" its lucrative business that targets corporate customers, in exchange for individual users "who want it free or cheap," according to a screenshot of the question submitted online. Adobe executives didn't answer the question, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

A similar question was broached during an Adobe earnings call in June. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said the "number one question" he gets from investors is whether AI will reduce Adobe's "seats available."

This is a closely watched measure of the company's customer base. Adobe often sells cloud software subscriptions based on the number of seats, or licenses, which provide customers access to the technology. A company with, say, 5 graphic designers in-house would buy five licenses. So if designers are getting laid off, demand for licenses might fall, cutting into Adobe's revenue, or slowing sales growth.

In response to Thill's question, David Wadhwani, Adobe's president of digital media, said the company has a history of introducing new technology that leads to more productivity and jobs. 

Some employees are not sold on this idea. In the internal Slack channel, a group of employees discussed how new generative AI technology is fundamentally different from prior disruptive innovations.

Cameras, for example, still required skill and expertise to produce good photography, they said. In contrast, generating AI images requires almost no skill, raising concerns over losing "craft and expertise that can only be gained through continued practice and personal creativity," one of the people wrote in the Slack channel.

"The 'slot coin operator' model of creativity is not a world I want to live in, randomly cycling outputs from a plethora of mashed together concepts," another person wrote. "Personally I wish Adobe had not gone down the path of releasing pure text 2 image and had continued to focus exclusively on tools that empower artists to create." 

On top of that, previous artistic revolutions opened up new mediums, with cameras helping to create photographs that looked nothing like old paintings, some of the people said. AI images, however, directly compete with existing digital formats. 

"It does not innovate in the way a camera does in that it replaces people in the mediums that it draws data from instead of opening up new means of expression," one of the people wrote.

Wall Street doesn't seem too worried. Adobe's stock is up more than 50% this year, placing it at the top of the BVP Cloud Index with a roughly $235 billion market value. Bernstein analysts gave a bullish view in a note last month, saying Adobe has made the biggest noise in the AI space, alongside Microsoft, which is a major OpenAI investor.

"Adobe is in Microsoft's league when it comes to which companies have made concerted, thoughtful investments in AI over many years and is going to offer generative AI everywhere within its offerings," the Bernstein note said.

For now, Adobe is encouraging employees to try AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, though it set specific guardrails on using them at work, as Insider previously reported. 

But according to internal Slack conversations, employees still want more answers. Some raised questions around Adobe's ethical use of AI and the environmental impact of its workload. One person wrote that Adobe lawyers should provide an internal town hall on the state of AI regulation, while another said the pace of change is "murky at best to predict."

"What they do know is that many folks are apprehensive or concerned as a result of that uncertainty," one of the people wrote in Slack. "So the question then becomes: how do they create transparency and some sense of continuity or what to expect, to help dispel or quell worries?" 

Do you work at Adobe? Got a tip? 

Contact the reporter Eugene Kim via the encrypted-messaging apps Signal or Telegram (+1-650-942-3061) or email (ekim@insider.com). Reach out using a nonwork device. Check out Insider's source guide for other tips on sharing information securely.

New law shields DeSantis’ use of state vehicles to campaign

TALLAHASSEE — If it hadn’t been for a fender bender on Interstate 75 near Chattanooga, Tennessee, Tuesday morning, most folks wouldn’t know that Gov. Ron DeSantis was using state government vehicles for his 2024 run for president.

Tuesday’s four-vehicle collision on the way to a campaign fundraiser draws a curtain back on the campaign’s use of state resources. But finding out who’s paying for it is nearly impossible thanks to a new law passed by the Legislature to protect the governor’s travel records from public view.

“The legislature has enabled him to hide his travel records so they don’t know and have no way to hold him accountable if he is using state resources in his campaign or if that is even the case,” said Ben Wilcox, research director for Integrity Florida, a nonprofit government watchdog.

It was frustrating enough when trying to monitor his use of government resources while traveling around the state, Rep. Anna Eskamani said, but to take those people and vehicles out of state is even worse.

“It’s absurd that he’s using public resources and public infrastructure to campaign.” said Eskamani, D-Orlando. “He’s using state resources to boost himself politically.”

The governor’s campaign motorcade was on their way to a fundraiser in Chattanooga when an accident up ahead caused traffic to slow down. A Tennessee Highway Patrol officer leading the motorcade stopped short, Chattanooga police reported, causing the vehicles behind it to rear-end each other.

“If the accident hadn’t been reported, they wouldn’t have known otherwise about the use of state vehicles,” Eskamani said. “It makes you wonder how often state vehicles and public employees are being used at out-of-state campaign events.”

A female staffer was treated on the scene for minor injuries, but no one else was hurt, police said. Other accident victims included Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents. All the vehicles involved were government vehicles, the police report said.

The accident occurred at the start of a long day of campaign fundraisers scheduled in Tennessee, including in Knoxville and Nashville.

The DeSantis campaign did not respond to a request for more information about the use of state vehicles and personnel.

“We’ve never answered questions about their protective operations assets (number of agents used, vehicles etc.),” FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said when asked how much the agency was charging for travel and security for the governor’s campaign.

The FDLE puts out an annual protective services report in August, but Plessinger didn’t say whether it would break down campaign expenses or show reimbursements for them.

The DeSantis campaign’s federal campaign finance report filed July 15 for the three-month period ending June 30 doesn’t show any payments to FDLE for travel or security expenses.It does show the campaign spent $76,256 on private security firms, including $64,588 to Rubicon Protection security services of Sun City, Ariz.

The accountability issue comes at a time when the governor’s campaign has burned through contributions at an alarming rate, forcing DeSantis to tighten the belt and lay off 38 people, or a third of his campaign staff.

The largest expenditures seem to meet at the crossroad of staff and travel, as he’s been known to travel with a large entourage of staffers and security.

The campaign raised $20 million through June 30. Of the $8.2 million spent through that date, just over $1 million was spent on payroll and nearly that much on travel.

His presidential campaign spent $896,000 on travel-related costs through June 30, with more than half of that going to one company, N2024D LLC, located in Athens, Ga. It filed incorporation papers in Florida on May 22, two days before DeSantis officially announced his candidacy for president.

One of the LLC’s officers, Paul Kilgore, is a GOP operative responsible for running political committees and super PACs supporting candidates for federal office, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry when he ran for president, and Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke. He currently is heading up a fundraising committee for North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is also seeking the Republican nomination for president.

Kilgore owns several of companies that do political consulting, marketing and campaign compliance, including Capitol Hill Lists and Professional Data Services.

Another $98,000 went to Empyreal Jets and $31,205 to Avion Aviation, both charter services out of Houston.

It’s well-documented that DeSantis has a penchant for flying on private jets provided by a group of wealthy donors representing hoteliers, developers, restaurateurs, investment bankers, trucking magnates and oil and gas distributors.

Questions have dogged DeSantis since his reelection campaign began about whose private jets he’s traveling on and whether they are being reported as in-kind contributions or gifts.

An Orlando Sentinel review of state records in November documented more than $500,000 to cover his transportation costs for his re-election in 2022, on top of millions in straight-up donations.

It’s unprecedented, Wilcox said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a sitting governor run for [president].”

DeSantis is also setting a precedent for lack of transparency, said Michael Barfield, director of public access for the Florida Center for Government Accountability.

“At the end of the day, taxpayers don’t know what their money is being spent on,” Barfield said.

His group is talking to its lawyers about next steps.

“We’re questioning the validity of the exemption,” Barfield said. “We don’t think it meets a public purpose, so they will brainstorm about potential legal action.”

Eskamani said if the Legislature wanted to make the governor more accountable, it could repeal the public records exemption.

But, she said, that would be a long shot. “It would take a political will that doesn’t exist, even for something as nonpartisan as access to travel records.”