In short, AI models can be asked to create a story, a picture or even a short film. But according to Weber Wong, these models are all “made of non -creative for other non -creative to feel creative”.
In other words, they are not made for real creative professionals. This is something Wong hopes to change FloraA new start where he is a founder and CEO.
Flora started this week, filling with a proclamation Stating that “Creative AI tools should be more than games to create AI Slop” and description of Wong and his team as “obsession with building an electric tool that will deeply shape the future of creative work”.
The manifesto places the flora as something different from the existing AI tools, which “facilitate creation but do not have creative control” and the existing creative software, which gives users “control but are smooth and time -consuming”.
Flora does not try to make better AI models. Wong claimed that one of the basic start -up knowledge is that “models are not creative tools”. Instead, Flora offers an “infinite canvas” integrated with existing models – it is a visual environment where users can create text, images and video blocks.
“The model doesn’t matter, technology doesn’t matter,” Wong told me “it’s about the interface.”
For example, a user could begin by urging Flora to create a picture of a flower and then request details of the image, with these details that lead to more prompts and varied images, with each step and variant to be mapped on the aforementioned canvas, which can also be shared with clients.
Wong told me that he wants Flora to be useful for all artists and creatives, but the company initially focuses on working with visual design organizations. In fact, it is independing for product with feedback from designers in Fable Agency Pentagram.
The goal, Wong said, is to allow a Pentagram designer to “do 100 times more creative work”, they say creating a logo and then quickly creating 100 variations. He compared it with the evolution of the musical composition – where Mozart “needed an entire orchestra to play his music”, a musician today can do it all “from his New Jersey garage with Ableton, making himself and posting on the soundcloud”.
Wong has a background in both art and technology, having worked as an investor at Menlo Ventures, but left when he realized: “I wasn’t the man who would be back.” Determined to become the kind of founder worth investing, he eventually joined the interactive telecommunications program of the University of New York, a postgraduate program that focused on the use of art technology.
When Flora launched an Alpha version in August, Wong decided to ‘start with a work of art This presented AI technology in real time “, with Flora’s homepage showing a live food from a GoPro camera on the Wong head and visitors to the site have the opportunity to use AI to form the material after registering for the Waita Waita list.
Given his history, Wong knows that there are artists and professionals who are skeptical or even strongly opposed to the use of AI in art – in fact, the pentagram created some disputes Last year, when he used Midjourney to create the illustration style for a project with the US government.
Wong said that where existing models have been embraced by the “AI Natives”, he hopes Flora can win over “AI weird” and eventually become useful enough for even “Ai haters” feel they should try it.
When I raised concerns that AI models can be trained without taking into account copyright and intellectual property, Wong noted that Flora does not train AI models itself (because it uses models of other companies), adding: “We will follow social standards.”
And while he is passionate who does not want Flora to be used to release an AI slop flood (“we will get hats that say” Anti-Ai Slop “), he suggested that the start will allow artists to unlock” new aesthetic and creative abilities “, in the same way, in the same way, in the same way, in the same way, in the same way Kodak’s Brownie Camera Transformed photo making it more casual and accessible.
Flora does not reveal funding details, but its supporters include A16Z games. The product is available free of charge with a limited number of projects and created content and then professional pricing starts at $ 16 per month.
