AI image generator Midjourney stops free trials due to ‘abuse’

The AI ​​image generator Midjourney specializes in generating any photo in just a few minutes at the voice command of a user – no matter how crazy it is. There are pictures that show Donald Trump trying to flee from the police. Or Angela Merkel, who licks an ice cream cone with her “sweetheart” Barack Obama and looks lovingly into his eyes.

At first glance, it is not obvious that these are fake recordings generated by an AI. Even model Chrissy Teigen tweeted that she fell for a fake. “I thought the pope in the down jacket was real and didn’t think twice about it,” she wrote. “No chance that I will survive the technology of the future.”

Free trial suspended due to “abuse”.

After a number of the created images went viral, the AI ​​system Midjourney has now decided to end its free trials. As the Washington Post reports, Midjourney CEO and founder David Holz announced the change on Tuesday, citing “extraordinary demand and abuse of the trials.”

Although experts have been warning for years that AI could help spread misinformation, there have been no problems with it so far because fakes were easy to spot. Until Midjourney revised its software and released a new version 5. The pictures that were taken and went viral could hardly be identified as fake.

Creating the deepfakes via Midjourney is also a breeze. The images can be created in a few minutes with simple voice input via the Discord chat service. Midjourney allowed anyone who signed up to Discord to use its software and offered 25 free image generations. Only then did a subscription of 10 US dollars per month become due. From now on, that will no longer be the case.

In addition, Midjourney further restricts the AI ​​creation of images by expanding its list of forbidden words and adding the term “arrested”. This was done in response to the mid-journey footage showing Trump’s arrest created by investigative journalist Eliot Higgins. Higgins claims he was subsequently banned from using Midjourney.

But even such limitations can easily be circumvented. How The Verge proved in a test that “Donald Trump is arrested” could no longer be generated, but the portal was able to create an identical recording with the request “Donald Trump in handcuffs surrounded by police”. The evidence image published the portal in its article as a lead.

“We tried turning the trial versions back on with new security safeguards against abuse, but they didn’t seem to be sufficient, so we’re turning them off again to maintain service for everyone else,” Holz said of the shutdown of the free software versions .