midjourney, the artificial intelligence image generator, has decided to suspend its free trials after the scandal caused by some of its creations. Among them, the false arrest of Donald Trump and the viral images of Pope Francis in a Balenciaga-style coat. The CEO and founder of this platform, David Holz, explained that they took the measure due to “an extraordinary demand” and “abuse” by users.
Midjourney allowed, prior to the cut, that anyone who registered through Discord could generate 25 free images. Only after this quota was exhausted, did he charge subscriptions that They range from $10 to $60 per month.
Holz said they were reviewing the site’s moderation guidelines, especially those that have to do with generating content that includes real people. “The images become more and more realistic and the tools more and more powerful,” said in a live audience with about two thousand people that was held today on Discord, reported the Washington Post.
Midjourney launched version 5 of its service in mid-March, which significantly improved the quality of images depicting people. Within a few days, the scenes of Donald Trump and Pope Francis generated with the tool went viral. The problem is that many assumed that they were real, revealing the ability to the platform for making pretty convincing fake news.
Midjourney, a small imager with great power
Midjourney was launched in 2022. Within a year it gained more than 13 million members and became one of the most popular AI-powered tools. Until September of last year, the company was made up of 10 people and had no investors. In a interview published last September, Holz reported that they had around 40 moderators in different countries.
Midjourney’s content standards are more permissive than those of DALL-E, the OpenAI image generator, but more restrictive than those of Stable Diffusion, from the Stability AI company.
Users must be at least 13 years of age to use Midjourney. The Terms of Use prohibit adult content and gore, as well as text indications that are “inherently disrespectful, aggressive or abusive”. But not much else. The journalist Eliot Higgins, responsible for the images of Trump, was expelled from the platform after the material went viral, but the company did not explain the reason.
Dall-E, on the other hand, forbids creating images that include politicians, protests or other content that can be used for campaigning. Also those that intend to refer to “major conspiracies or events related to important geopolitical events in progress.”
Midjourney was sued last January by a collective of artists, which ensures that the developers trained the AI model with images and works published on the Internet without the consent of the original creators. The company has not yet responded to the claim in court.