The new, free downloadable tool Nightshade has received an astonishing 250,000 downloads within the first five days of its release, according to an interview with the project’s director, Ben Zhao, by VentureBeat.

The tool was created by computer science researchers at the University of Chicago and is designed for artists, providing a way to protect individual artworks from becoming part of the training data used by AI models employed by companies. The number of downloads suggests that some artists are eager to safeguard their works from being utilized in AI training.

As mentioned in an earlier article, Nightshade manipulates generative AI image models by modifying pixels in images sourced from publicly shared works online. This makes them appear to contain entirely different content from the perspective of machine learning algorithms, such as replacing a horse with a car or a table. Consequently, the AI algorithm can start producing erroneous visual material based on what the user requests, as it has been trained on misleading images.

The development team also has another tool called Glaze, released in April 2023, which has already garnered 2.2 million downloads. Glaze essentially operates in the same manner but aims to prevent AI models from learning the artist’s style by altering pixels to make them look like something else to machine learning algorithms. The popularity of these two tools underscores artists’ concerns about the unauthorized use of their works in AI training.

What´s Coming Next?

The Glaze Project has previously mentioned a new tool that aims to combine both defensive Glaze and offensive Nightshade. The combined version must undergo careful testing and will take at least another month, perhaps more. Meanwhile, the project’s researchers are advising artists to use Glaze first and then Nightshade to protect their style while disrupting the training of AI models.

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