AI Image Generator Midjourney Stops Free Trials but Says Influx of New Users to Blame
upstart writes:
AI image generator Midjourney has stopped free trials of its software:
AI image generator Midjourney has halted free trials of its service, blaming a sudden influx of new users. Midjourney CEO and founder David Holz announced the change on Tuesday, originally citing "extraordinary demand and trial abuse" in a message on Discord (this announcement was spotted first by The Washington Post). In an email to The Verge, Holz stated that the pause is "because of massive amounts of people making throwaway accounts to get free images."
"We think the culprit was probably a viral how-to video in china," said Holz over email. "This happened at the same time as a temporary gpu shortage. The two things came together and it was bringing down the service for paid users."
Given Holz's reference to "abuse," it was originally thought that the pause was linked to a spate of recent viral images created using Midjourney, including fabricated images of Donald Trump being arrested and the pope wearing a stylish jacket, which some mistook for real photographs. However, Holz characterized earlier reports as a "misunderstanding" and notes that the free trial of Midjourney never included access to the latest version of Midjourney, version 5, that creates the most realistic images and which is thought to have been used for these viral pictures.
[...] Midjourney maintains a list of banned words "related to topics in different countries based on complaints from users in those countries," as per a message from Holz last October. But it doesn't share a complete version of this list to minimize "drama." As Holz said last year, "Almost no one ever notices [the ban list] unless they're specially trying to create drama which is against our rules in tos [terms of service] 'don't use our tools to create drama.'"
[...] At the time of writing, Midjourney is still not allowing free users to generate images, though this may change in the future. "We're still trying to figure out how to bring free trials back, we tried to require an active email but that wasn't enough so we're back to the drawing board," said Holz.
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