In a striking exodus from Meta’s AI-dominated platforms, artists are finding a new home on Cara, an anti-AI social app designed by and for creatives. Over the past week, according to TechCrunch Cara has seen an explosive growth from 40,000 to 650,000 users, swiftly climbing to the top of the App Store charts.
For many artists, Instagram has long been a necessary tool for promoting their work and finding clients. However, Meta’s use of public posts to train its generative AI systems has sparked widespread outrage, especially since only European users, protected by GDPR laws, can opt out. This frustration has reached a boiling point, leading many to abandon Meta’s platforms altogether.
“When you put [AI] so much in their face, and then give them the option to opt out, but then increase the friction to opt out… I think that increases their anger level — like, okay now I’ve really had enough,” Jingna Zhang, a renowned photographer and founder of Cara, told TechCrunch.
Cara, available both on the web and as a mobile app, combines the features of Instagram and X but is tailored specifically for artists. Users can host a portfolio of their work and post updates to their feed, creating a safe space for creatives to share without fear of their art being used to train AI models.
Zhang is no stranger to defending artists’ rights. She recently won a legal battle in Luxembourg against a painter who copied one of her photographs. Zhang argued that consent is crucial, regardless of the medium or availability of the work online.
Zhang is also part of ongoing lawsuits against major tech companies like Google, Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway AI, accusing them of using artists’ copyrighted work without permission to train their AI systems. “Words can’t describe how dehumanizing it is to see my name used 20,000+ times in MidJourney,” she lamented in an Instagram post.
Artists’ resistance to AI stems from the unauthorized use of their work to train these models, which scrape vast amounts of images from the internet, often including copyrighted material. This not only threatens their livelihoods but also violates their creative integrity.
Zhang’s commitment to protecting artists extends to Cara, which partners with the University of Chicago’s Glaze project. This collaboration allows artists to manually apply Glaze to their work on Cara, adding a layer of protection against AI scraping.
Other initiatives like Spawning AI have also emerged, offering tools for artists to remove their work from AI training datasets. However, these efforts rely on the cooperation of companies using the datasets, and currently, only a few, like HuggingFace and Stability, honor these opt-out requests.
“I think there is this clash between backgrounds and expectations on what we put on the internet,” Zhang explained. “For artists, we want to share our work with the world. We put it online, and we don’t charge people to view this piece of work, but it doesn’t mean that we give up our copyright, or any ownership of our work.”
Zhang’s insight into AI’s impact on creativity dates back to her interest in Go, a strategy game where she witnessed Google’s AlphaGo defeat one of the world’s best players, Lee Sedol. This event highlighted AI’s profound influence on human endeavors, sparking Zhang’s proactive stance in protecting artistic work.
Cara’s rapid growth comes with challenges. Founded in late 2022 and bootstrapped with volunteer support, the app faced a staggering $96,280 web hosting bill due to its sudden surge in users. Vercel, the hosting company, reached out to assist, but it remains unclear how this financial hurdle will be resolved.
Despite the obstacles, Zhang remains committed to her vision, avoiding venture funding to maintain control over Cara’s mission. “Building a product is a bit like making art,” she reflected. “I think you just make something that you like as a person, and know not everyone will love it. But some people who have the same point of view, they would, and then you can grow your community from there.”
As Cara navigates its breakthrough moment, it has a growing community of like-minded artists rallying behind it, ready to redefine the digital landscape for creatives.
