State of the art in AI image generation as we go into 2026.

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Comments

  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 833
    So, uh, write a better one and convince people to use it? These changes happen when someone decides there's a problem and fixes it.
  • Typedesigner
    Typedesigner Posts: 109

    Another fundamental point that should not be overlooked is that the OFL was created for humans — specifically designers, developers, and those engaged in collaborative creative work. AI, however, is not a human actor. It has no authorship, no rights, and no inherent need for the freedoms the OFL was designed to guarantee.

    If the OFL is not updated to account for AI, its original intent could be effectively undermined within the next 10–15 years. AI systems are already moving toward generating complete typefaces, including refined spacing and kerning, in a fraction of the time required by human designers.

    Early signs of this shift are already visible: tools can produce complex outputs from minimal input. Applied to typography, this enables the large-scale creation of fonts that are clearly stylistically derived from OFL-licensed sources, yet may not meet the current legal definition of “derivative works.”

    The consequences could be significant. Type designers and font engineers may face growing economic pressure or displacement. At the same time, large-scale actors could systematically ingest entire libraries — such as Google Fonts — and mass-produce thousands of variations.

    The question, therefore, is not whether this will become technically possible, but whether it aligns with the community’s values.

    Updating the OFL would not restrict freedom; it would expand it. It would give designers the ability to make meaningful choices about how their work is used in the age of AI. Freedom is not only about openness — it is also about agency.

  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,535
    Typedesigner said:

    a model can ingest hundreds of OFL fonts, extract stylistic features, and generate new, substitutive designs


    Do you think that can be done with any fonts which are licensed for use on a local computer?
  • Typedesigner
    Typedesigner Posts: 109

    Not just local computers — OFL is designed for broad redistribution and circulation across the web ecosystem.

    And my point was mainly about where AI systems may be in 10–15 years, not only about current capabilities.

  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,659
    There’s a proverb in English about closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, which I think applies in this case.

    It is unlikly that OFL will be changed, and there is no mechanism within OFL to update it as it applies to existing fonts under that license. This means that even if one were able to produce an OFL v2.0 with some kind of option to restrict use in machine learning, it wouldn’t apply to all the fonts already in Google Fonts, which are licensed under OFL v1.1 and would remain so.

    It is also worth noting that Google is one of the tech companies strongly pushing AI, so they hardly have an incentive to put a targeted restriction on machine learning on a service that they operate.

    Further, a large quantity of the fonts available through Google Fonts were funded through contracts with font makers that explicitly obliged them to publish the fonts under OFL v1.1. They could also opt to publish under a new license, such as Simon suggests, with machine learning restrictions, but they couldn’t retroactively cancel the OFL v1.1 licenses. [Once a font is published under any license, that license remains in effect for any copies licensed in that way. Some licenses have provisions for being updated, with changes being retroactively applied to existing licensees—technology changes are one of the main reasons for such provisions, but as noted OFL has no such provisions.]

    I am not disagreeing with or discounting your concerns @Typedesigner. AI in general is a massive con in which tech companies help themselves to stuff that is either commonly owned or the work of other people, and then rent out as a service that produces more-or-less obscurely derivative works. Simply put, they are hoping to get rich(er) selling stuff derived from other peoples’ creativity and labour without compensation.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,535
    Typedesigner said:

    Not just local computers — OFL is 

    I meant not merely only fonts under OFL, but all fonts under any license for local use (eg installed to use in a word processor app)... well, any which don't explicitly prohibit AI training on documents made with the font. 

    Because it seems to me that there's little difference to a neutral network if it's trained on sfnt data or pdf data. 
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 355
    Dave Crossland said:

    I meant not merely only fonts under OFL
    Dave, do you imply that if current commercial font licenses do not explicitly prohibit use for training an AI model, it means AI can use them (accessing them wherever it can reach)?
  • Simon Cozens
    Simon Cozens Posts: 833
    edited May 8
    Anthropic weren't permitted to read all the copyrighted books in Library Genesis to train their models, but they did it anyway and paid the settlement fee as part of the cost of doing business. We only knew they'd done it because content from the books started turning up verbatim in the model's output. Even if it were prohibited, how would you be able to prove that a model had been trained on commercial fonts, especially if the output was a "remix"?
  • Igor Petrovic
    Igor Petrovic Posts: 355
    Simon Cozens said:
    Even if it were prohibited, how would you be able to prove that a model had been trained on commercial fonts, especially if the output was a "remix"?
    AI companies operate in jurisdictions, and authorities can question their operation, not only by the final result. That will happen sooner or later, but after "the horse has already bolted".
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,348
    edited May 8
    The making of fonts is particularly relevant to the AI issue.

    With digitization, decades ago, the type industry came to the legal position that it’s OK to simulate a typeface “manually,” but not by “point piracy.” (And of course, layered on top of this there are various social contracts as to how much plagiarism/homage is acceptable.)

    In other words, the process of visual derivation has to pass through someone’s eyes and hands, organically, it can’t just be the mechanical transformation of data—which is how AI cheats the humanity out of seeing and making visual artefacts, by text instructions. 
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 789
    edited May 8
    I of course knew of this possibility when I discussed a "variable cloud in which each node is a font" on this board several years ago. As someone commented, the result is a swamp water drink. And the clients that would want such a design would be so devoid of aesthetics that good riddance to them - if they use AI to generate a personal or internal company font, it would have been a pain to create for them. So thx, AI. 
    Neither am I bothered by the NPCs that have flooded the market with cheap knock-offs and souless "neohumanist grotesks" etc. in the past 10-15 years. I would go mad if I had to live and create at such a low level every day. So thx to them too. They shot themselves in the foot chasing quick wins and all they did was kick the can down the road and set themselves up for menial jobs when the bubble burst. I have been going for years to bars and to interviews where the bartender or the HR was previously a philosophy major and/or a pixel pusher that thought they can work an office job all their life. I delight in guys that dressed like Steve Jobs now serving me beer. Why yes - I WOULD like fries with that. ;)



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