Photo giant Getty took a leading AI image-maker to court. Now it's also embracing the technology

Anyone looking for a beautiful photograph of a desert landscape can find many choices from Getty Images, the stock photography collection.

But say you're instead looking for a wide angle shot of a “hot pink plastic saguaro cactus with large arms that stick out, surrounded by sand, in landscape at dawn.” Getty Images says you can now ask its artificial intelligence image-generator to make one on the spot.

The Seattle-based company is taking a two-pronged approach to the threat and opportunity that AI poses to its business. First, it sued a leading purveyor of AI-generated images earlier this year for what it alleged was “brazen infringement” of Getty's image collection “on a staggering scale.”

But on Monday, it also joined the small but growing market of AI image makers with a new service that enables its customers to create novel images trained on Getty’s own vast library of human-made photos.