Building an anonymous AI photo editor without letting one visitor take the GPU

I’m building Turner AI, a browser-based AI photo editor: https://turner.art

The visible workflow is simple: upload a photo, write what should change, and download the result. The harder engineering problem is fairness. I wanted the first edit to work without an account. But image editing is not a zero-cost request, and anonymous traffic means a small number of visitors can consume a disproportionate amount of GPU time.

Design Approach

The design we are moving toward separates convenience from authority:

• Browser state can discourage accidental overuse.
• The server remains the source of truth for admission.
• Usage is counted only after a job is actually created.
• Queues and fair-use controls protect everyone else when capacity is tight.

That last point matters. A failed upload, a failed human check, or a rejected request should not silently spend someone’s allowance.

Current Policy

The product is free to try, requires no account, and successful downloads do not carry a Turner watermark.

Open Question

For developers who have shipped anonymous compute-heavy tools: would you add signup earlier, or keep the first-use flow open and enforce fairness behind the scenes?