Glazing Over: Protecting Creator Images from AI Models with Glaze

Intellectual property protection tool shields original photography, art, illustration, and other visual media against AI-generated derivatives

I have two big passions in life right now: AI and Art. I spend my mornings painting abstract acrylic art and my days working on gen AI projects and writing about all the interesting technology I encounter along the way. As chance would have it, these passions have collided in the last couple years in unexpected ways. While I am a big proponent, and daily user, of diffusion models for creating AI-generated images for fun, inspiration, and work, I am also fearful that the art I create using my paintbrush will someday be misused by others using this same technology.  

The Challenge for Creators

Text-to-image diffusion models like Stable Diffusion, Dall-E, and Mid-Journey are trained on vast amounts of unlicensed online content, allowing them to produce images that mirror the human creativity behind it. This has raised real concerns about intellectual property rights, as original works are potentially being used to create derivative works without permission or compensation from the original creators. These models are currently the subject of intense litigation, and it remains to be seen whether or not this creative free-for-all in training AI models will continue. In the meantime, the stakes are high for intellectual property owners, who rely on their unique creative vision and skill to establish themselves in a crowded and highly competitive market. Given the stakes, countervailing technologies, much like Digital Rights Management (DRM) in music, are emerging to help creators protect their work in this new AI-powered world.

Enter Glaze

One tool for IP protection that has gotten traction recently with artists and creators is Glaze. Glaze is the brainchild of Shawn Shan and a small team of researchers at the University of Chicago. It’s specifically designed to help visual creators like photographers, artists, illustrators, and designers safeguard their images from being misappropriated by generative AI models. Glaze works by creating a 'style cloak' that protects the original image from being used to train AI models, preserving the integrity of the original work.

You can think of Glaze’s style cloak as a special kind of invisible ink that can’t be seen by the naked eye but distorts the image in the “eyes” of AI models. This cloak makes it extremely difficult for AI diffusion models to reproduce or create derivatives of the original image. In simpler terms, Glaze is like an invisible shield that protects creators' work from being misused by AI models. You can learn more about the Glaze model and how it works here on the Glaze webpage.

How to Use Glaze

The best part about Glaze is it’s completely free and very easy to use. You will need a modern PC with NVIDIA GPU or Mac (M1 or later, or recent Intel-powered Mac Pro). You’ll also need a decent amount of storage as Glaze and its model library requires 4 GB of space on your hard drive. If you can satisfy both these requirements, then you’re ready to start protecting your images with Glaze.

Installing Glaze

1.     Download Glaze from the University of Chicago project page

2.     Unzip and decompress the Glaze file

3.     Navigate to the Glaze folder and double-click the Glaze.exe to install the application

Using Glaze

Using Glaze could not be easier. Assuming you use the default protection settings, you can protect your images with just three clicks:

1.     Select the image or images you want to protect (you can Glaze more than one image at a time)

2.     Choose the level of protection you want to apply to the images

3.     Select the folder you want to output the images to

4.     Click “Run Glaze”

Glaze UI with sample protected output (right) next to unprotected images (left)

Once Glaze has processed your images, the protected images will appear in your selected folder with a new file name indicating their protected status and settings. I used Glaze to protect all of my artwork and replaced the reference images I have out on the open web with these ‘Glazed’ images. You can see the side-by-side images of Glaze output for a couple of my pieces in the screenshot above. The unprotected work is on the left, protected on the right. They are indistinguishable to the naked eye. While I paint for pleasure, it gives me peace of mind to know that my images are protected from misuse by AI models now and in the future. If you’re a creator and concerned about protecting your work, I highly recommend giving Glaze a try.

Conclusion

Glaze is an innovative tool for artists seeking to safeguard their intellectual property from misuse by generative AI models. As the AI industry continues to evolve, Glaze and similar technologies will be an essential component in shaping the future of AI’s impact on creators and vice versa. By providing a simple and secure way to protect original content, Glaze has empowered artists and other creators to continue to confidently share their work with the world.