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AI Technology

AI Image Generator Midjourney Stops Free Trials Citing 'Abuse' (theverge.com) 49

Posted by msmash from the tough-luck dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: AI image generator Midjourney has halted free trials of its service after a number of its generations -- including fabricated images of Donald Trump being arrested and the pope wearing a stylish jacket -- went viral online, with many mistaking the fakes for real photographs. Midjourney CEO and founder David Holz announced the change on Tuesday, citing "extraordinary demand and trial abuse."
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AI Image Generator Midjourney Stops Free Trials Citing 'Abuse' More

AI Image Generator Midjourney Stops Free Trials Citing 'Abuse'

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  • The ones that really fooled me (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    are the ones of Joe Biden showing him completely senile. It looks so REAL!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Neither candidate does well in the "coherence" department. I expect the debates will be a drool & froth contest.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Or Melania naked playing with herself.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by MobileTatsu-NJG ( 946591 )

      The ones that really fooled me are the ones of Joe Biden showing him completely senile. It looks so REAL!

      Btw those pics of Trump's topless wife are real.

  • I wonder if any of the police recognized themselves in the images
  • had two eyes. It's pretty gross when AI can't figure that out.

    • Compound-lensed insects actually run the Deep State and GPT engines. Humans are doomed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pz ( 113803 )

      Yeah, but many of them seem to have too many arms and legs. Or weird legs that seem to be melding into each other.

      AI image generation has come a good way since those freaky dog-and-flower hybrids from a few years ago, but perfection has not been achieved.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pz ( 113803 )

        Replying to my own comment -- in the image at the top of the linked article, there is no human body associated with the hand wrapped around Trump's left arm.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by JeffSh ( 71237 )

      your comment is funny but its on point because midjourney never exposed their v5 in trial. i dont know whats driving the elimination of their demo/trial access but its not this.

      the pope image and the trump image are impossible in v4. the v5 access is required and thats paid.

  • Was Captain Obvious on vacation? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday March 30, 2023 @12:37PM (#63412060) Journal

    What did they think users would do with it?

    • Make porn they could monetize.

    • At that point it is simply called business.

    • Maybe we should call this the Oppenheimer effect?

      When someone develops something cool, apparently COMPLETELY oblivious to the obvious and completely predictable uses to which it will be put.

      cf the game Spore where ultimately, the universe was basically filled with giant penises.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        > the universe was basically filled with giant penises.

        Washington DC is proof.

      • they nerfed the game concept REALLY hard to try to stop people from making penisis, yet penisis still got made.

      • Oh Oppenheimer knew. He also felt pretty convinced that not doing it would lead to some pretty significant deaths in terms of a continuing war.

        I'm not sure he continued to hold that caveat later. The knowledge of what he helped unleash tormented him for the rest of his life.

    • Something something, Natalie Portman, something, hot grits.

  • But paying to "abuse" is ok right? (Score:4)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Thursday March 30, 2023 @12:44PM (#63412088)
    Seems like they want to monetize before the ai fad goes the way of nft monkeys.
    • The abuse part is here forever. Fortunately, nobody want to look at ai generated images as an art piece even if they are technically perfect, this part will fade.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Yeah sure, except for the art competitions that have been won by AI generated art or professional artists passing off AI created works as their own. Yup, no one wants to look at that stuff.

      • I think the actual savior for Artist jobs is going to , ironically be, the Copyright system, or rather the lack therof when it comes to this stuff. Basically, the courts have found that if the artwork isnt made by people (you can thank PETA for this after their ludicrous lawsuit where they tried to claim copyright for a monkey that had managed to accidently snap a photograph) then it isnt copyrightable as the language in the law, and in fact the Constition (Sec 1,8) is explicit that copyright can only by a

      • Fortunately, nobody want to look at ai generated images as an art piece even if they are technically perfect

        Why not? If I like them, I'll look at them. I don't really care whether some painting was handmade by monks working with brushes made from single hairs of the rare golden hamster of Madagascar or by some AI.

        I especially don't care much about what people say "art" is, and what isn't. I mean, some of them think hanging an urinal from a museum wall is "art", so anything they say can be ignored. Even more so when they have a huge vested interest in eliminating AI as an art source.

    • Policing abuse is scalable for paying users. E.g. you can hire 1 content moderator for each 1000 customers, or whatever it needs to be. Whereas having millions of users who pay nothing creates a big expense and no means to meet it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by zeiche ( 81782 )

      i don’t think AI is a fad like Super Pong and CB radios.

  • declares bringing imagination to life is abuse. Like seriously what is the purpose of it if not to generate images that people would like to see? How is it abuse for one person to generate something they want to see but not another person?

    • I don't see a problem with generating fake images a reasonable person would know are fake, or even real-seeming images that don't cause a problem.

      When you start generating images of real people from current events and passing them off as real or without disclaimer, it's really no better than faking shit with a deepfake and is going to ruin this cool technology for the rest of us who aren't low-effort trolls. At that point you're just generating propaganda and I'mma start calling you Dollar Store Putin.

  • Why can't the output include a steganographic watermark?

    It's tempting to think about cameras that sign their output but it's hard to get that right.

    • If nothing else works to get rid of the watermark, I can always toss it in a local stable diffusion model and run it through img2img at low denoising. It'd be identical to the casual observer, but completely destroy any stenographic properties.
  • I even generated an image of Diaper Don driving a white 80s Bronco down the 405 being chased by cops.

    Then again, I didn't share it with anyone but my coworker.

    I also pay for Midjourney already. I like having my own private chat with the bot instead of trying to find my images in the nightmare scroll of random "Hot fake girls that aren't quite pornographic but you can tell the person wanted them to be".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by irving47 ( 73147 )

      Yeah you could definitely tell which way some people leaned in their fantasy lives.

      I grabbed a couple of cool images, but it was usually stuff like, "show iron man as an eagle in more patriotic armor" or "mickey as captain america"

      • I did "Iron man, but in Hello Kitty colors" and the result was painfully adorable. Iron Man in pink and white with teddy bear ears was too much.

  • i was using that one and it kicked out some truly gorgeous images. I may well pay for that one.

  • Midjourney is shooting themselves in the foot by doing this. Right now they have the best image generator but Dalle is not far behind- and Microsoft has integrated Dalle into Bing Chat, for free. They should be grateful for the free publicity of their images circulating widely- not trying to shut it down. In a year from now any company putting this stuff behind a paywall will be irrelevant.

  • Soon: Art supply manufacturers halt sales of paintbrushes and pencils after discovering people use them to draw naughty pictures and political cartoons

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